by Lucas Marcum
Shooting an amused look at Brian, Elizabeth returned the salute. “At ease, Lieutenant Wilkowsky. You dropping with us?”
The lieutenant responded snappily, “Yes, Ma’am!” Noticing that they were both clad in full combat armor, he paused, then asked hesitantly, “Should I get my armor too? I wasn’t told I’d need it…” Brian smirked, and Elizabeth shot him a warning look.
Kindly, she replied, “No, Lieutenant. This isn’t a combat drop. Hard shell isn’t required, per the regs.”
The lieutenant breathed a sigh of relief. “Oh, ok. Good. I didn’t want to get in trouble for not being in the right uniform.” He paused, then his face clouded with worry. “But...why are you two in your armor?”
Elizabeth smiled and Brian’s smirk grew wider. After a second of letting the younger man sweat, Brian responded in a serious tone, “Well, you see here, Lieutenant, we learned the hard way that you ought to be ready for...contingencies. You know.” The young man shook his head, his eyes wide.
Shooting a frown at Brian, Elizabeth replied to the frightened lieutenant. “What he means, Lieutenant, is that we learned the hard way on Desolation that you ought to be prepared to shoot, move, and communicate on the ground if you have to. Even if you think it’ll be a smooth as glass drop, and this probably will be, there are still Elai down there, and you can count on them to ruin your day if they get half a chance.”
Grinning unrepentantly, Brian added, “You’ll probably be fine, Sir. These birds hardly ever lose atmosphere anymore…” The lieutenant’s eyes widened and he opened his mouth to reply, when a hangar deck cart pulled up in front of them. A young enlisted sailor in the brightly colored flight deck crewman’s uniform hopped out and saluted snappily.
“Major Suarez, First Sergeant Agawa. I’m here to give you a lift to Pad Alpha Seven. If you’ll follow me…” He indicated the benches on the utility cart. Brian and Elizabeth tossed their bags in the rear and climbed aboard. After a second’s hesitation, Lieutenant Wilkowsky followed, climbing into the rear seat.
Leaning close to Brian, Elizabeth whispered, “You know, you don’t HAVE to torture every new officer we get. You could try being nice.”
The noncommissioned officer grinned slightly. “Ma’am, I don’t get many perks in this job, but shaping young officers into soldiers and men is one of my most sacred duties as a noncommissioned officer in this fine army.”
Shaking her head, Elizabeth responded, “Fine. But we ARE stuck with him for the next seven months. Try not to make him jump at his own shadow, will you?”
Brian blinked at her in a perfect picture of feigned innocence. “Ma’am, I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Elizabeth shook her head, repressing a grin, and sat back in her seat, feeling the old familiar combination of nerves, excitement, and the thrill of a pending drop singing through her body.
****
Several minutes later, they pulled up next to their assigned launch pad. Their Valkyrie sat in the middle of the re-entry shield. The shield itself was on a set of tracks that lead towards the massive doors that were feet away from the nose of the Valkyrie itself.
As they pulled up, they could see a young man with sandy hair in lightweight flight armor near the nose of the aircraft. He was standing in the re-entry shield with his hands on his hips, looking up. Above him, they could see the head and arm of Lieutenant Colonel Moreno leaning out of the pilot’s hatch. As the two officers and the NCO exited the transport cart, they could hear the conversation.
The young man was speaking, “Ma’am, I attached them as best as I can. I can’t drill into the shield. Sticktight will have to do. I just can’t guarantee they’ll hold under the re-entry vibration.”
Elise glared down at him. “I don’t care. We’re not losing them. Fix them, Captain.”
The man threw his hands up and exclaimed in an exasperated voice, “You know there’s no procedure for this at all, right? Nothing in the manuals, nothing in the database. Hell, I don’t even know if we’re allowed to do this!”
Elise fixed the young man with hard frown. “What part of ‘I don’t care’ do you not get, Mitch? Fix. It.”
Spotting Elizabeth and Brian, she beamed. “Hey, guys! Glad you’re dropping with us!” Seeing the lieutenant, her smiled vanished. A suspicious look crossed her face. “Who’s this?”
Lieutenant Wilkowsky came to attention and saluted. “Second Lieutenant Wilkowsky, Ma’am! Assigned to the flight this week!”
Elise looked down at Elizabeth. “Did you sign off on this, Liz? You know I don’t like cherries in my bird.” Elizabeth climbed up on the edge of the re-entry shield and turned to help Brian up.
She turned to look up at Elise and responded, “It’s ok, Ma’am. He’s just riding down with us. He’s assigned to Two-One with Rocco and Icepick.”
Lieutenant Wilkowsky whispered to Brian, “Rocco and Icepick? Seriously?”
Brian grinned. “Don’t sweat it, LT. Their names are WAY scarier than they are. They’re good guys, even if they are from Jersey. Their crew chief though…now SHE’S a bear.” The young lieutenant looked at the older noncommissioned officer with uncertainty. Brian smothered a grin and turned to grab the gear out of the cart.
A female voice came out of the fuselage of the bulky aircraft, “Captain Winters, five minutes until hangar atmosphere evac. Let’s start the checklist.” There was a pause, then the voice continued with an icy note in it, “If you’re done doing whatever the hell it is you’re doing, that is.” Mitch gave Elise a sour look, wiped his hands on a rag, and clambered towards the cockpit of the aircraft. Elise grinned at him, gestured Brian, Elizabeth, and Jonathan towards the rear, and disappeared, sealing the hatch behind her.
Jonathan moved towards the rear bay doors of the aircraft and mused, “I wonder what she’s doing?”
Brian shook his head. “I find, Sir, that it’s best not to ask. When Colonel Moreno gets an idea in her head, she rarely drops it until it comes to fruition.”
Elizabeth grinned in amusement. Climbing up into the aircraft, she turned and grabbed the outstretched hand of the young lieutenant, and hauled him in by picking him up off his feet and gently setting him in the rear of the aircraft, the powered armor giving her lift a surprising strength for her size. She turned around and noticed a pile of thick steel pipes secured with straps, and several large crates similarly secured in the middle of the cabin. Frowning slightly, she stepped to the other side of the pile and moved to the opposite bay door, where there was a crew seat.
The last inside, Brian punched the master seal button. The armored doors folded up, closing the bays on either side of the fuselage. For a moment, the only light was from a tiny window in the middle of each door. In a few seconds, red interior lighting flickered on, and then the large door-mounted view screens lit, revealing the hangar bay around them in crystal clear definition. Brian motioned to the jump seat, a small seat with its back to the bulkhead that separated the bay from the cockpit. A tiny door that lead forward was open. As they climbed in, a petite blonde woman in the same lightweight flight armor they had seen on the officer outside appeared, crouching in the hatchway.
“Hey, guys. You can strap your gear into that pile of crap in the middle. Put the cherry in the jump seat for this one.”
Brian nodded at her. “Hey, Jojo.” He nudged the lieutenant. “This is Staff Sergeant Ruthers. She’s the flight engineer. It’s her bird, so do what she says, Sir.”
The sergeant regarded Lieutenant Wilkowsky for a moment, then asked, “You get sick on drops, Sir?”
Jonathan managed a worried smile. “No, Sergeant. Nervous as all hell, but not sick.”
She regarded him dubiously. “Well, ok. If you do barf, try to use a bag. It’ll take you forever to scrub it out of the cabin if you hurl in zero g.” She indicated a headset. “There’s your headset. Get strapped in. We’re pushing in about six minutes.” Elise and Brian swiftly secured the three small bags to the pile of equipment in the middle
of the cabin, then secured themselves into the seats on either side of the fuselage. Lieutenant Wilkowsky was nervously strapping himself in and plugging in his headset.
As he activated the headset, he could hear the crew talking.
Brian was speaking, “Yeah, about that. I thought we were supposed to be ‘Olympic Flight’.”
Elizabeth chimed in, “I thought so too. Elise, how DID you get the colonel to change the entire aviation flight name to ‘Valkyrie’?”
Responding calmly from the cockpit, Elise explained, “Well, I went into his office, told him that his idea was stupid, and I had a better one. He agreed with me.”
Elizabeth raised an eyebrow. “I’m sure. There was no persuasion at all?”
“No. I just told him what he was going to do. Why do you ask?”
“Oh...no reason.” Elizabeth could see Brian strapped into his seat, smirking. She shook her head.
The flight engineer spoke up, “Ok. Navy’s evacing the hangar in one minute. Extra atmospheric checklist.”
They could hear Captain Winters speaking from the cockpit, “Cockpit seal.”
The engineer responded promptly, “Green.”
“Internal environment controls.”
“Twenty-one, Alpha and Bravo.”
“Internal oxygen level.”
“Twenty-five thousand; one, two, and three.”
“Crew cabin seals.”
“Green.”
“Bulkhead hatch.” The tiny hatch next to Lieutenant Wilkowsky slammed shut, and a small light turned green over the top of it.
“Closed; sealed.”
Captain Winters spoke again, “Vacuum checklist complete. Colonel, we are good for vacuum operations.”
From the cockpit came Elise’s voice, which had slipped into the smooth, dispassionate voice she used when at the controls of her Valkyrie, “Roger. Atmosphere evac in fifteen seconds.”
Outside, the massive hanger had emptied of personnel, and bright yellow lights were flashing. At the edges of the giant room, sailors in hard-shelled space suits stood in rescue cages, with bright yellow emergency boxes next to them. The sound of hooting alarms could be heard faintly through the hull of the Valkyrie. Seconds later, the sounds faded, and the flashing yellow lights turned to a solid yellow.
There was a gentle rocking of the aircraft, then the hangar outside was silent.
Captain Winters said, “Ok, we’re in vacuum. Preflight checklist.”
He began the preflight checklist with the flight engineer and Elise. Elizabeth took a deep breath, removed her sidearm from her leg holster, checked the load, safed it, and returned the weapon to its holster. Lieutenant Wilkowsky watched this with horror.
Brian, noticing the look on the Lieutenant’s face, spoke in a kinder voice, “Listen, LT. We’re going to be fine. Me and the Ma’am had a bad experience on Desolation is all. We…well, we just like to err on the side of caution. We’re not going to need our armor or sidearms. We just like to have ‘em. You know?” The lieutenant nodded, then laid his head back against the bulkhead, and tried keep a neutral expression on his face.
Through their headsets came Elise’s voice, “Bay doors opening.” Outside, the light changed, going from a hard, artificial light to the flat, strangely shadowed light of low orbit. Elise spoke again, “Launch in ten seconds.” Brian waved at Lieutenant Wilkowsky and pointed at the screens that showed the hangar around them.
Suddenly, there was a gentle push against their restraints, and the hangar seemed to slip away behind them. To their left they could see another Valkyrie; One-Two slightly behind them keeping pace, and beyond that, One-Three. Suddenly the hangar was gone, replaced with the massive slate grey wall of the Thor’s Hammer. There was a momentary gut-wrenching churn as they left the massive ship’s artificial gravity field, then a brief bit of disorientation, as what had been to the rear of the Valkyrie was now down, and what had been down was now out. Lieutenant Wilkowsky felt his stomach churning and clenched his eyes shut.
Brian noticed this spoke quickly, “LT, open your eyes. Look at the planet and breathe. Orient yourself. That’s down now.” Outside, the massive bulk of the assault transport vanished as the Valkyries rolled, and the crystal blue and white of the planet came into view. Seeing this, the young officer fixed his eyes on the horizon and took several deep breaths.
Watching him closely for a few seconds, Brian asked, “Better?”
After a moment, the young man again opened his eyes. “Yeah. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Let me tell you from experience, zero gravity vomit is no fun for anyone, and rest assured, Sergeant Ruthers would have you scrubbing the ever-loving hell out of her bird. Anyway, watch the screens, the light show’s about to start, “
Through the intercom, they could hear Colonel Moreno speaking, “Re-entry in ten. Cinch those belts back there. This is going to be a bumpy one.”
There was another slight push against their restraints as the attitude jets corrected their orientation, then a few seconds of silence. Brian and Elizabeth watched the screens. In the distance, there was a brief glimpse of the assault transports, the massive warships seeming insignificant against the backdrops of the stars. There was a slight tremble, and the voice of Captain Winters came through the intercom, “One hundred twenty kilometers up, and here we go.”
The tremble grew to a vibration, then a steady shaking. Outside, the black of space started to change colors; first pink, then red, then dark orange. As the color changed, the vibration increased. Occasionally a spark flew past the window, leading to a red-orange glow with sparks flying by, then to an otherworldly view.
Brian twisted his head around to check on the lieutenant. He found him sitting transfixed by the sight. Grinning, Brian asked, “You ok, Sir? Enjoying the ride?”
The lieutenant responded without taking his eyes off of the screens, “It’s spectacular. What are those sparks?”
Elizabeth responded, “I asked the same thing on my first Valk drop. It’s tiny bits of the ablative shielding burning up in the plasma flow. It’s supposed to do that. Wait till we transition to atmospheric flight. That’s really spectacular.”
Through their headsets, they could hear the calm tone of Captain Winters, “One hundred kilometers. You guys ok back there?”
Elisabeth toggled her intercom, “We’re good, Mitch. It’s quite a view. The lieutenant’s never done a Valk drop before.”
They could hear the co-pilot chuckling. “Well, tell him to hold on. We’re about to get into the chop.”
Lieutenant Wilkowsky, hearing this, cinched his belts tighter and shot Brian and Elizabeth a thumbs up.
Outside, the red-orange plasma had completely covered the screen, tinged white at the bottom. The sparks flew in a steady stream. The big aircraft was now vibrating steadily, and there was, for the first time, a steadily growing roar from the outside.
The shaking continued and the roar grew louder. Captain Winters spoke again, “Eighty kilometers. Not too much longer now.” The roar grew louder, preventing conversation in the back. The view screens were completely white, with the sparks making a steady stream of light flashing and popping as they blew past. The roaring continued for several minutes, then, as if someone had turned a dial, began to fade. The white plasma flow turned red-orange, then pink, then faded, and left a deep blue-black view out the view screens.
There was a moment of silence, then they realized that gravity had returned. They could hear Winters say from the cockpit, “Fifty kilometers above the ground. We’re falling.” The roaring and shaking was gone now, replaced with a gentle rocking and the buffeting of high, thin air.
They could hear Colonel Moreno’s calm voice through the comm system, “Prepare for shield detach.”
Winters responded, “Pulling the pin in five…four…three…two…one. Firing.”
There was a series of pops from outside of the Valkyrie as the bolts blew the attachment points to the heat shield. The big aircraft lurched and surged u
pwards as its wings bit into the air for the first time, giving it lift as the weight of the re-entry shield fell away. There were several seconds of silence as the Valkyrie pointed its nose slightly down. The crew in the rear cabin felt rocking back and forth, pitching and yawing, as Colonel Moreno and Captain Winters tested the control surfaces, then slow, deliberate banks to slow the aircraft. Several seconds later, Winter’s voice came again, “Twenty kilometers. Airspeed Mach six. Engine start sequence. Lieutenant, this is where you ought to be nervous.” He added a moment later, “It always scares the hell out of me. Start on one and two.”
The aircraft lurched again, and there was a gentle push of acceleration behind them, then a second later a series of lurches as the aircraft started to slow and made a gentle series of banks.
Captain Winters spoke again from the cockpit, “Well, what do you know? It worked. We’re a powered aircraft again. Ten kilometers, Mach three, slowing fast. It ought to be pretty smooth from here on out. Lieutenant, look to port.”
The Valkyrie banked, and they could see the planet’s surface below. Deep, lush greenery here and there, with jagged mountains poking out from the foliage. In the distance, there was a massive mountain with a flat top sticking out of the jungle. The top of the mountain was bare, with little vegetation and no trees.
Elizabeth indicated the mountain. “The Marines set down there; it’s the top of the volcano that formed this landmass. It’s pretty high, four thousand meters or so, so that’s why there’s no trees. The highest point on the planet, actually. The air will be really thin and cold up there. Brian, it’ll feel like home for you.” The sergeant rolled his eyes and smiled slightly.
From the cockpit, Elise was speaking, “Set six three point two…Yep. There.”
In their headsets, they could hear a cheerful voice speaking, “Valkyrie Flight, this is Paradise Control Station Charlie. Welcome to Paradise! We’re your air traffic control asset until you get your tactical operations established. Be advised, you’re going to have an escort into your landing zone. Eyes out for Voodoo Flight to your seven o’clock. You can contact them on one two seven point six. This will remain the general approach frequency.”