The Soldier

by Terrance Mulloy

  That did elicit some whoops and hollas from the crowd, but it was mostly a lackluster response. From Barbee’s reaction, it looked as if he was expecting it to be. The giant elephant in the room was the fact that many of these greenies were going to die before they even reached the surface of Epsilon.

  Barbee knew it, and so did they.

  Matt felt a sudden jolt, and his row of exojackets began to move again, shifting with the other rows, organizing themselves into their pre-ordained platoons and squads.

  Once again, the ground underneath split open, and the greenies entered a huge deployment bay that was buzzing with urgent activity and the whine of heavy hydraulics.

  In the center of the bay, hundreds of drop-pods spiraled out in a circular pattern. There must have been at least three hundred in total, possibly way more. They sat there on the aprons like brass church bells, patiently waiting for their occupants to arrive, their reinforced hulls gleaming under the stark deck lights.

  The Drop Signal Officers down here who coordinated logistics and readied the pods were known as Ramp Rats. They scurried about the deck in various teams, tinkering with equipment and supplies. They wore bright orange vests over their uniforms and looked akin to flight deck crews one might see on a conventional aircraft carrier.

  “Christ… will you take a look at that,” muttered the greenie next to Matt. “We’re in it now, dude.”

  Hearing the distinct musicality of an Upper Midwestern accent, Matt peeled his eyes away from the scene below to acknowledge the American man suspended next to him.

  He was about six or seven years younger than Matt, with deep-set eyes that seemed at odds with his pudgy red cheeks and heavy-set build.

  “Baptism by fire,” Matt replied.

  “A-fucking-men.” The young greenie was a live wire of energy. He threw Matt a confident grin and nodded back. “Name’s O’Donnell. Chris.”

  Matt gave him a quick look to return the nod. “Matt Reeves. Good to meet you.”

  “You bet. Good to meet you too.”

  They were coming up on their designated drop-pod. The open hatch offered tantalizing glimpses of the dimly lit interior. From this angle above, the pod interior appeared to be a nest of metal brackets and thick cables.

  Other rows of exojackets had already been detached from their turbo-lift arms and were being slotted into upright positions, assisted by their designated Ramp Rat crews.

  “T-Squad One!” barked the Ramp Rat standing nearest to the open pod, watching them descend to his position. Like the Prep Officers Matt encountered earlier, he also sounded British, although way more cockney. “Right, listen up you lot! There are twenty-five pods in total assigned to your platoon, and each pod gets a nine-man squad. As an example, pod one is Pale Rider Four. This will be your positioning. First position: Jackson, Maynard, Akim, Beckett, Lee. Second position: O’Donnell, Davis, Reeves, Lopez…” As Matt’s row came to a halt over the open hatch, the Ramp Rat continued announcing seating positions.

  Matt hung suspended in the air as he went into a queue, waiting to be inserted into his chair, and glad his squad were the first to go. He pitied the others who would have to hang suspended above their pods, possibly for the next thirty minutes while other squads went before them.

  “Here we go, baby,” huffed O’Donnell with excitement as he was lowered in through the hatch. Matt could hear pistons hissing and metal clamps snapping into place around O’Donnell’s exojacket once he was secured.

  Matt was next. The other greenies watched nervously as he was lowered into the pod, suspended within three concentric rings.

  Another Ramp Rat scaled the rungs of a small ladder on the pod’s hull and climbed half inside, gently guiding Matt into position. “Those of you already locked in should be feeling pretty snug about now,” he said. “The roll coupling dampeners you are secured to are gimballed. They’ll pitch and yaw on all three axes when required, so don’t be alarmed if you start spinning. But if anyone feels like they are not secure, you must inform me immediately. If you can feel or hear something loose or rattling, you must also inform me immediately. Your bracket comes loose during your drop, you’ll bloody-well be a Jackson Pollock before you even break atmo.”

  The rings around Matt’s exojacket snapped into place, fastening him into position. Despite the size of the pod, he had to mentally suppress the feeling of claustrophobia that was threatening to surface. It was a natural reaction, given the fact that he was completely unable to move apart from turning his head. The turbo-lift’s giant mechanical arm detached from Matt’s jacket and slowly retracted out of the hatch with a high-pitched whine. Once the Ramp Rat had checked Matt was secure, he climbed back out of the pod and disappeared.

  Design-wise, there was nothing in here apart from a series of small viewports studded around the hull, which because of their size and thickness of their armored glass, only gave limited views of the outside world. These pods were not designed to give their occupants access to any stunning space vistas. They were really nothing more than hunks of reinforced steel and polymers, solely designed to get combat infantry to a planet’s surface in one piece without burning up in the atmosphere. Matt thought it gave the impression of being strapped inside a larger version of NASA’s old Gemini re-entry capsule he once read about in school.

  The cockney Ramp Rat suddenly reappeared, sticking his head through the hatch with a grin. “Your pod is looking good, greenies. We are drop commit. Big day, big smiles, yeah?”

  No one was smiling, except O’Donnell.

  Kim Maynard, a fresh-faced brunette from upstate New York, barely out of her twenties, lifted her head to the ceiling and closed her eyes as if trying to block out her surroundings. In another life, she might have been a glamor model. In this life, she was a trained killer.

  Jacketed next to her was Amjad Akim; a thirty-something Wisconsinite with Egyptian heritage. He carried the build of a brawny weightlifter in his prime. He dropped his head and closed his kind eyes, praying softly.

  Across the aisle, Henry Wilson bit his lip nervously. Much like O’Donnell, he was wired and ready to get down there. There was a hint of buzzed red hair just visible beneath his helmet, and his fair complexion was the kind only Irish people from Boston were blessed with.

  “Hatch closing. T-minus five minutes to drop!” yelled the cockney Ramp Rat. “Have a smooth ride down. God be with ya!”

  As he disappeared, a warning beacon began to drone outside. Ramp Rats could be heard barking orders to clear the deck.

  There was another loud hydraulic whine as the submarine-style hatch of their pod lowered. It clamped shut with a heavy thud, making them feel as if they’d all just been sealed inside a giant bank vault. The tension was now palpable, and the heavy breathing among greenies was almost deafening.

  When Daniel Lee, a skinny Japanese American kid from Honolulu, suddenly craned his neck forward and puked over himself, the other greenies were wound so tight, they hardly noticed.

  Except for Maynard. “Nice. Real nice,” she said, grimacing. “Well done.”

  Martina Lopez, a steely-eyed Chicano from LA, also grunted with disgust. “Turn this pod into a chunder bucket before we drop? Awesome job, kid.”

  “Go easy on him, folks. He’s just nervous,” said Dylan Davis from across the aisle. Built like a diesel engine, he was a fifty-two-year-old Texan who worked offshore oil rigs before the invasion. “Besides, maybe it was a tactical chunder.”

  “That’s a thing?” asked Maynard, uncertain if he was joking or serious.

  “Sure it is. You’ve never eaten the breakfast buffet at Caesars?”

  Maynard rolled her eyes and turned away, knowing he was full of shit.

  “Easy on the boomer humor there, old man,” jeered Lopez. “Not all of us are over ninety.”

  Davis leveled a big fuck you smile at Lopez. “Try fifty-two, cupcake.”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “I don’t know, ask me when I’m ninety.”

&n
bsp; Lopez hacked out a laugh and shook her head. She liked this guy.

  Once Lee had managed to compose himself, he wearily looked up at Maynard and Lopez, the fear of combat still overriding any embarrassment he may have had. “Sorry about that. I get motion sickness.”

  Lopez snickered. “Hate to break it to you, Chino, but we ain’t movin’ yet.”

  “Prepare for drop. T-minus two minutes,” said the calm female voice over the pod’s internal comms system. This was the pod’s Bitchin’ Betty.

  “Yo, let’s go already!” yelped Beckett, a tubby Jewish thirty-something from Yonkers.

  “I hear that,” replied O’Donnell, almost unable to contain his excitement now. “Let’s get this show on the road.”

  “You think this is a show?” queried Jackson, his cynical dark eyes burning into O’Donnell from across the circular aisle. Jackson was an older African American man from Chicago. He had sketched a giant Cubs logo in marker on the side of his helmet. “This is probably gonna be the first and last drop you’re ever gonna take, boy. Maybe try and savor the moment a little.”

  O’Donnell was just trying to find a release for his nervous energy. By the slightly bewildered look on his face, he didn’t get Jackson’s bleak idea of humor.

  “Sixty seconds to drop…”

  Maynard, Wilson, and Akim now looked as if they were each starting to regret their decision to volunteer for this, hearts firmly caught in their throats, waiting for the inevitable point of no return. The others in the group did not fare any better either. The quick round of verbal jousting between some of them was a welcome relief from the building tension, but it was far from being a circuit breaker for the deep fear that now blanketed the pod. They were about to drop into the middle of an interstellar war. Humor could only carry them so far.

  Matt’s eyes remained focused and emotionless. During tense situations like this, he would normally fidget with his wedding ring, but he was unable to move. Instead, he made a conscious effort to keep his breathing even. His gaze locked on the small viewport on the opposite side of the hull while he mentally cycled through his landing procedures.

  Outside he could see a red warning light somewhere nearby, its beam sweeping across the deck like a lighthouse beacon.

  The HUDs displayed across everyone’s faceplates suddenly flashed to life again, raining new streams of data related to their upcoming drop.

  “Thirty seconds to drop…”

  Matt felt he did not need to track any of that stuff just yet. He decided the best thing he could do was close his eyes and breathe deeply, continuing to calm himself mentally.

  “Twenty seconds to drop…”

  Matt could feel a low rumbling starting to build underneath him now. The bracket he was fixed to was starting to vibrate a lot stronger. He figured they were moving into position over the deck’s bay doors.

  “Ten seconds to drop. All pods are in the green…”

  Matt worked his jaw, his nostrils flaring as he took some of the stagnate air into his lungs. Any second now…

  “Initiating drop vector… Release.”

  Apart from a hard metallic snap above them, it took a few seconds for the greenies to realize they had just detached from the Intrepid and were now plummeting through space towards the surface of Epsilon.

  Matt cautiously opened his eyes to steal a glimpse outside.

  There were no stars due to the planet’s surface glow, so there was nothing visible except the velvety blackness of space. He could not see any other pods or ships in the fleet either. Surprisingly, it all felt rather tranquil and serene. The vibrations were still a little jarring, but there was no uncomfortable friction.

  That ended the second the pod’s external thrusters kicked in.

  Without warning, the pod lurched and began throttling along its vectored course, headed towards the DLZ. Everyone felt their stomachs pitch as sickening G-forces kicked in. When the pod began to adjust its angle of insertion, the greenies all tilted with it. With each passing second, the metal vibrations inside the pod were getting stronger and more intense. They were now hammering towards Epsilon’s atmosphere at supersonic speeds.

  Suddenly, they began to hear faint thuds against the hull, quickly followed by brilliant flashes of light.

  At first, Matt thought it was Epsilon’s stormy cloud banks rushing up to meet them, but when he saw tracer fire streak past the viewports, he knew the Wraith were unleashing their batteries on them.

  Then, there was a world-shaking jolt as the pod began to spin wildly. It felt as if they had just been struck by a runaway train.

  Maynard and Davis started screaming as everyone sat there, bouncing and heaving, helpless against their restraints, praying the pod didn’t tear apart before they reached the surface.

  Even O’Donnell was now deathly quiet, his eyes pinched shut with fear.

  “Approaching altitude threshold. Drifting east,” said the pod’s Bitchin’ Betty in its usual prosaic tone. “Warning, warning, vector degrading...”

  That didn’t sound good. Lee and Akim wailed in terror as the pod rolled sharply on its side until it began corkscrewing. This drop had quickly turned into the carnival ride from hell.

  Matt could feel all the calmness he had acquired earlier starting to spiral away from him. Panic was rising. Blood was now thundering in his ears.

  “Readjusting… maintaining course integrity… vector correcting… vector corrected.”

  The pod rocked as it swung back on course like a pendulum, a blast of hot steam now hissing from somewhere inside, threatening to suffocate everyone.

  Peering through the flashing HUD on his faceplate, Matt stole another glance outside.

  Through the exploding flak that washed over the pod, he could just make out the hazy tinge of Epsilon’s stratosphere cutting against the blackness of space. They had broken through and were no longer suborbital. Sound came blasting back into their ears as tracers continued to strafe the pod. Even through the padded cushioning of their helmets, it was deafening, like the banshee wail of some demented sea monster.

  “Beginning final landing approach. Pressurization systems initiated.”

  Matt’s eyes now ticked over the altitude and vector read-outs displayed on his HUD. The pod had managed to self-correct and stabilize its trajectory, but they were still descending at a speed of nearly three thousand miles per hour, and he could feel every bit of it.

  “Eighty-thousand feet. Beginning descension rate analysis. Good on track.”

  The pod began to shake even more violently as it screamed towards the surface at terminal velocity. The whole thing sounded like it was about to break apart at any moment. Matt was now extremely anxious to discharge from this bone-rattling missile. This was not a fun ride.

  The air was starting to get heavy. He struggled to focus on the G-Limiter in his HUD that was creeping towards five-G’s. The sense of acceleration was tremendous as gravity kept pressing his spine harder and harder against the inner support pads of his exojacket. He was unable to fight it. If the G’s continued to increase, they’d all be passed out within the next ten seconds. They’d also be flat as pancakes by the time they reached the surface. Not the most ideal way to land on an alien planet populated with hostile enemies.

  “Ten-thousand feet. Finalizing stabilization contingencies.”

  The relentless shuddering made it almost impossible to see anything outside, but Matt could vaguely make out some jagged mountain ranges in the distance now. Due to the nauseating speed, they looked to be suspended, as if nothing outside was moving at all.

  During its summer season, Epsilon’s equatorial peaks were not capped with water-ice, but rather, a thick slurry of Carbonyl sulfide and silicon. Due to the highly combustible and flammable properties of sulfide, it was not uncommon to see mountain peaks set ablaze from the intensity of the sun. Some projected columns of fire that could stretch miles into the sky and were visible from space. The soldiers stationed on Epsilon called the largest of these
enormous flaming peaks, Mount Boom.

  Just as Matt thought he was going to grey out, the pod’s velocity began to rapidly decrease. Within seconds, he could feel the G’s weakening, but he was still fighting to stay conscious.

  “One-thousand feet. Engaging external dampeners.”

  A series of ventral flaps exploded around the bottom rim of the pod, sharply pitching it forward before leveling out again. The pod was no longer falling, it was drifting. Stabilizing thrusters continued to blast jets of steam, keeping the pod upright as it kicked up huge clouds of dust.

  “Ten-feet. Flaps purged. Commencing glide-to-stop protocols.”

  The pod began to tilt again, skidding across the rocky desert floor like a runaway hot-air balloon until it became a controlled slide, finally easing to a halt.

  They were pod-down in the middle of Epsilon’s sweltering badlands; unaware they had landed miles away from their DLZ.