Next morning I went to the motor pool with my crew and prepped my two tanks for load-out. Double checked everything, every nut and bolt, every gizmo and widget, ran built-in tests and hooked up the diagnostic machine and tested everything. And we replaced a road wheel, the left inner road wheel number three. It was out of round, slightly egg-shaped. Not really a problem for training but for combat, not acceptable. Finally I grabbed a mechanic to help drive and we lined the two tanks up at the paint booth and got sprayed to match the terrain of Tumbler’s habitable areas. A dull, non-reflective green. With the vehicles parked in the staging area by the spaceport, I called it a day and released my troops and went to eat at the chow hall and went to my room. 19:24 hours. Not a bad day. I spent a couple of hours packing my bags and then went to sleep.
***
Friday came and I humped my bags half a klick down to my vehicle and stowed them in the bustle rack. Trooper Caldwell was already there in the driver seat of ORF-1, Cpl Parks in the hatch of ORF-2 behind me, a mechanic driving. I took my seat and put on my helmet and connected the commo cord. “Parks, you got me?”
“Roger, Sergeant. Not much longer.”
The cargo truck in front of us pulled away, out the gate of the staging area and across the tarmac of the spaceport. We followed. I looked at all the drop boats lined up along the tarmac. One for each platoon, approximately. For two battalions plus support, plus supplies. I guessed there must be forty of them. Certainly less than sixty, the maximum number of drop boats the transport ship could carry. Soon the truck drove up into the back end of a landing boat. (They call them boats because, to be classified as a ship, a space craft has to be capable of unassisted interstellar travel.) There were four pallets of supplies and two cargo trucks already on board. A loadmaster was there and ground-guided me into position inside the aerospacecraft. ORF-2 parked right beside me and then the cargo ramp folded up into the overhead. I dismounted and helped Parks tie down the tank, the loadmaster came and checked the tie-down and gave a thumbs-up and then I got back in the tank and shut the hatch and buckled myself in. That was what we all did; it was SOP.
The drop boat taxied out to the runway, trundled along, lifted off the ground. I heard the landing gear come up, the boat tilted up at a 400 mil angle and accelerated. Then I heard the wings retract, then hard acceleration through mach one. And again, the wings retract a little more, then mach two, and then three, the wings all the way in, mach four and beyond. Then the sensation of weightlessness.
Then the call from the boat’s load master, “We are docked. At this time, move to the transport ship.”
I popped my hatch and shoved off toward the front door. I pulled myself up through the stairwell past the boat’s crew quarters and through the docking collar, into the transport ship. I made my way through the corridor past the ship’s crew quarters and beyond the mess and recreation areas, past the training simulators and arrived at my assigned stasis pod compartment. My driver and gunner and four cooks and about half the mechanics of the HHS Company support platoon arrived. I watched as the ship technicians sealed one troop after the next into the coffin-like stasis pods. Being the senior ranking troop in that compartment meant I verified each pod after it was sealed, and then I was sealed in last. I lay in my pod and a technician gave me a shot in the left deltoid and I felt numb all over and drifted off and barely noticed as they closed the lid.
***
“Wake up, sunshine.”
The sound was warbly, like it was coming through water. I looked through blurry eyes. It was Stallion Six. I was coming out of stasis, I remembered. I sat up. “Morning, sir.”
He extended his hand and helped me out. “I’m going around to each chamber. Get up, you’ll rouse all the troops here. Briefing in the mess hall, nineteen hundred hours.”
I stood, barely. “Gravity?”
“We’re braking in at half a G. You’re fine. See you soon.”
“Yessir.”
He turned and left. I went around and put each pod in ‘resuscitate’ mode, went back around and woke up each troop when the lid slid aside. I helped them to their feet and told them about the brief at 1900 in the chow hall. Then I went to the berthing area assigned for HHS Company and looked for my name on a door. Finally I found it, in the last place I looked. All the way at the end of the hall I found my room. It was tiny, a cube, each side the length of the bed, but it was a single room at least and had its own bathroom and body cleaner. Or head, I guess that’s what they call it on a space ship. I checked my wrist chronometer and saw I had time. I went to my vehicle and grabbed my rucksack and took it back to my room and unpacked it, put the clothes in the compartment under the mattress and put my hygiene gear in the bathroom. I went to the chow hall and took a tray and ate. Cpl Parks saw me and sat down.
“Hey, Sergeant Slaughter.”
“Hey yourself. Not hungry?”
“Already ate. Waiting for the meeting.”
I checked the time. Ten minutes. Captain Blythe was already checking his vid gear on the screen at the front. There were smaller screens around the chow hall, all showing the same thing, the Battalion logo. His voice resonated throughout the hall. “Check, check.”
I gave him a thumbs-up, he waved back.
More troops crowded in, standing room only, the walls lined. Then Stallion Six entered. Captain Blythe stood and said, “At Ease!”
The mess hall became silent. Stallion Six bellowed, “Carry on,” and made his way from the entrance to the table by the screen where Captain Blythe sat. “Welcome back to the world of the living. You’ve been asleep for ninety three days, so I’m sure you’re well rested.”
Subdued chuckles came from the crowd. “Okay, listen up. Here’s the deal. I’m Lieutenant Colonel Guillermo Camacho, and I’m in overall command of this contract. Two weeks from now we hit the dirt. Starting now the atmosphere and gravity on board will gradually change to match that of the planet Tumbler, where we will conduct operations for a period of not less than six months. During these next two weeks we will train up for our new primary dismount weapon, specifically designed to counter the threat posed by the indigenous peoples on Tumbler. But you’ll get plenty about that later. May I now introduce to you the commander of the Mechanized Infantry Battalion, Major Delagiacoma.”
(Pronounced Day La Jack Uh Moe.) He was a little more than a meter and a half tall, a round olive face with coal black eyes, a thick black mustache covering his upper lip, his thick black hair short enough for regulations but combed with a noticeable part on the left side. The Major eased forward to take Six’s place, the vid showing him in the center of the screen. “Okay, I command the infantry on this mission. We’ve supported armor before and I see many familiar faces here wearing Tanker coveralls, so I don’t think there will be a whole lot of coordination problems.”
Six came forward again, Major D stepped aside. “Make no mistake, he is the Mech commander and my second in command. Anything he tells you to do, it’s just like I said it. Now for our schedule. We’ve split into shifts by company, rotating through skill training in the simulators and the fitness center. Do what you like otherwise, but don’t be absent from your appointed place and time of duty. The schedule is lax, so pay attention and do what you need to do. Any questions?”
Nothing.
“Okay. Company Commanders, take charge of your units.”
Infantry Company Commanders yelled out their unit call signs and locations.
“Regulators, Fitness center!”
“Bulldawgs, forward rec room!”
“Cobras, out the door and to the right, down the hall to the end!”
“Apaches, follow me to the lounge!”
The tankers stayed in the chow hall and formed four groups, each facing their respective commander. I stood with the group facing Captain Thews, the HHS Company Commander. She was lean and tall and had her yellow hair pulled back in a bun. Her green eyes were set wide in her broad, square face that seemed a bit too big for her body.
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br /> “Ladies and gentlemen, our schedule is as follows: Stand-to in full war gear at zero four hundred, chow, then simulator training. After that, you’re released until fifteen hundred hours. Be at the fitness center in athletic attire for an hour of physical fitness training. Other than that, your time is yours.” She stepped aside and Master Sergeant Jones, the HHS Executive Officer took her place.
He was tow-headed and broad shouldered and barrel-chested and his hips were as wide as his shoulders, above thick legs. And he was just over two meters tall. He ran a large, meaty hand over the buzz-cut hair on his scalp. “Okay. You got a lot of free time. Unless you miss your training. I get bored easy, so please do me the favor of missing some training so I can spend my free time messing with you. Give me something to do. Any volunteers? Anyone want to spend their free time amusing me?” He ran his gaze over the troops. “I think we understand each other but I’ll make it more clear. Miss any training at all and you’ll report to me and I’ll make your life miserable.”
Captain Thews stepped up on his right side. “All right. Dismissed.”
I wandered out of the chow hall toward my room. I was thoroughly confused. I was the Tasking, Training, Movement and Schools NCO for the Battalion. There was a lot of training going on and I had nothing to do with setting it up. As I approached my room I saw a Sergeant in infantry coveralls standing outside my door. She had dark brown hair worn loose to frame her face. Light brown eyes, a small nose, a soft curved chin. Pleasant smile as I approached, her coverall zipper down to the middle of her chest, the nude-tone t-shirt underneath covering the naughty bits but the neck hole itself stretched over time now showed the upper third of the boobs. Good ones, not too big, round and firm…
“Sergeant Slaughter,” she spoke.
I smiled. Couldn’t help it. “Who are you?”
“Your counterpart. I’m the training NCO for the Mech Battalion.”
“That explains a lot.” The top of her head came to about the same height as my eyebrows. I deliberately kept my eyes on her face. I noticed that her ears stuck out through her hair, just a little. Not too much. I smelled Honeysuckle.
“I came out of stasis three days ago and developed the training plan. I need to coordinate initial movement with you, for when we hit the ground.” She stepped close to me. “Everybody wants to be the first one down. The Commander wants us to work it out but nobody else needs to know we’re the ones making the drop plan. Kind of secret.”
“I understand.” Order of battle for the landing. There were practical concerns dictated by doctrine, of course. But there was also the matter of bragging rights. The first troop, squad, tank crew, which unit or company… they would be talking big smack for a long time. They’d be able to say for the rest of their lives, that on the Tumbler contract they were first in. And maybe last out, if it worked out that way. A huge thing best left to ethical disinterested third parties. Training NCOs. We training NCOs were lonely individuals with few friends, isolated individuals awash in a sea of disingenuous opportunist trying to solicit advantage and favor. For someone so closely monitored by the Commander personally, it would be career suicide to grant even the tiniest favor. I felt closeness to her, sympathy, someone who understood. I opened my door. “Let’s talk.”
She stepped into my room and sat on the bed and pulled out her communicator and connected it to the wall screen. I closed the door and sat next to her. Before I could read her name tag she shrugged off the top of her coveralls and tied the sleeves loosely around her waist. I did the same.
She pointed at the screen. “The manifest. The boats can’t be moved or reloaded so we only have these eight at the front to choose from.”
I read. “Easy. The third platoon of your Cobra Company.”
“We drop in pairs. Pick one of your tank platoons.”
I studied the manifest. Three to choose from, all from HHS. Only one of them had tanks, my tanks. But with only one crew, my crew. Not sound doctrine at all. Another held four ground-mobile anti-aircraft guns. Lightly armored wheeled vehicles. But with infantry support they would be safe and they had extended sensor range and superior communications gear. I chose them.
She looked over the choices, stored them on her communicator and changed the wall screen to a movie. “That was easy. Watch a vid?”
“Sure.”
The opening scene was a large mansion on a hill.
I said, “What’s your name?”
“Sergeant Emily Dickenson. My feet are killing me.” She took off her boots.
“Emily.” I took off my boots. The vid’s scene panned around a productive farm. Grain poured from the pipe boom of a harvester into the bed of the cargo truck that followed it across a golden field.
She put her arm around my waist. “These coveralls itch.”
I stood slowly, she stood and faced me. I hugged her and leaned in for a kiss but she stepped back and took off her coveralls. Nude tone panties to match her T-shirt. She sat on the bed. I removed my coveralls and sat next to her. The scene of the movie changed to the farm owner at his desk going over reports, his wife massaging his shoulders. I turned to Emily and gave her a kiss on the cheek. She turned to me and gripped my head in her hands and kissed me full on the mouth for a full minute. I broke away just long enough to dim the lights and then put my left hand behind her neck and leaned forward and kissed her again.
Chapter Four
After stand-to and chow I was in the rec room standing at the back near the door, leaning against the wall. The tables and chairs and game tables and everything else were bolted down, of course, but most of my company found a way to face the front of the room. A ship security crew member with plenty of attitude to go with the ton of stripes on her sleeves and badges on her chest stood there with a civilian man who held some sort of long gun, nearly as long as his arm. I never could figure out fleet rank, just knew that more meant more. Likely, the sturdy brunette outranked everyone else in the room.
The civilian spoke, “Listen up, troopers. I’m here to tell you about your primary personal weapon for this contract.” The civilian wore a gray hunting vest over his tan coveralls. His close-cropped gray hair and mustache and goatee beard gave away his status as retired from military service. Part of the new equipment fielding team. “Your likely opponents for this contract make extensive use of powered battle armor. What you need is something that can punch through it, taking that advantage away from them. I present to you the BlackStripe Arms Eliminator.”
He held the weapon up over his head in his left hand.
A trooper said, “A shotgun!”
The fleet security woman said, “Silence! Until you leave my spacecraft, you will call this weapon the Eliminator.”
The various monitors all around the rec area began showing a live feed of the civilian as he spoke, “This is a twenty millimeter smooth bore that is specifically designed to fire armor piercing rockets sufficient to destroy the powered body armor used by the indigenous population of Tumbler.” He held the weapon in both hands as though at port arms. It was just under a meter long, its hand grip part of the stock held in his right hand, the foregrip held in his left hand. He pulled back on the foregrip. “It’s a pump action, completely mechanical, rugged and reliable with no electronical doo dads to go out on you. The sight is a V in the back and a blade in the front. The rounds go in here,” he indicated an opening below the chamber, just in front of the trigger housing, “and come out here.” He aimed the weapon right at the recorder. I looked at the nearest monitor and saw the gaping maw of the weapon taking most of its viewing area.
He picked up a round. “This is a dummy round for the purpose of demonstration. It represents the primary ammunition for the Eliminator.” It was a caseless round, a projectile with a disk of solid propellant at is base, a primer imbedded in the center of the base. He pushed the round into the loading feed. Then he put in two more. “The tube magazine located under the barrel holds three rounds.” He then pumped the foregrip. “I just put
one in the pipe and now I’ll put one more round in the magazine to bring the total load to four.” He did.
The fleet security rep said, “Okay, while that information soaks into your heads, I want you all to file out into the hallway, then on your way back in we’ll issue you your weapon and four dummy rounds and you’ll stay here and practice until you can do everything you just saw him do. When I give the command of ‘do it’ I want you all to get the hell out of here, then turn right back around and get your new weapon on the way back in and we’ll get back to training. Do it!”
I managed to get out of there first and dawdled along the hallway effectively enough to be the last one back in. The civilian stood just inside to the right of the entrance and reached to the weapon rack behind him and handed me an Eliminator and four dummy rounds. I re-occupied my spot just to the left of the door. The civilian went back to the front of the room.
The Eliminator was just under a meter long, maybe two kilograms in mass. The stock was dark brown, solid plastiform, like a hunting rifle more than a tactical weapon, the hand grip not like a pistol grip but part of the stock. The receiver and barrel and tube magazine were metal, a short of sheen to it but not dull or reflective either. The rear sight was a V notch a centimeter high, the front sight a blade nearly two millimeters wide. I looked down the twenty millimeter bore. The inside was chromed, or at least it looked like chrome, shiny as a mirror. I then held the weapon at the ready and pulled back on the foregrip. The action was smooth as silk and made an impressive ‘chunk’ sound. I pushed the foregrip forward and it locked with another ‘chunk’ sound. So far, so good.
“Don’t get ahead of me!” the civilian was at the front of the room, pointing and glaring at me. The security woman also glared at me. I smiled.
The civilian said, “Ladies and gentlemen, at this time, we will perform a function check. Grip the stock by the hand grip of the stock with your firing hand. Now grip the foregrip with your other hand and hold the weapon at the ready.” He glanced around to ensure the troopers were caught up. “Pull the foregrip all the way back. Now push it forward until it clicks. Good. At his time, move your firing hand thumb until it is centered on the stock and press down on the nub until you feel it click and it should stay down. Good. Everyone good? Okay. Now use your firing hand index finger to pull back on the trigger. Nothing should happen, the weapon safety is engaged. Now use your thumb to press the safety again, the nub should click and then rise back up to its previous position. Now pull the trigger.”
The War for Profit Series Omnibus Page 60