Her assigned quarters were only a few dozen meters down a nearby corridor, but it was still a relief to get there. She had flatly refused to stay in the infirmary once the primary intervention had been completed, but the truth was that she was in bad shape. So she collapsed on her bunk and let her mind wander, following doctor’s orders despite herself.
Her mind kept coming back to Tristan. Ever since she’d been assigned to the 243rd, she’d had her eye on him. He was good looking, but then all marines were—both men and women had bodies to kill for, courtesy of the greatest training programs that humanity had been able to devise over millennia. That wasn’t what attracted her to him, however. There was something else about the guy, a quality that told her that he would see the job through, no matter what it was or what it cost him. Shock marines, especially experienced shock marines, were mainly cynics, herself included, but this guy was the earnest type. There was something endearing about that, something that set him apart.
What had started as a simple weighing of the men and women under her command had matured into a healthy respect for his straightforward approach and finally speculation about what he’d be like as a lover. Nothing she’d seen when they were naked beside their birthing pods had lessened her curiosity. Quite the contrary.
And now he was dead, and she was sitting there on the casualty list, unable to go take a piece of the bastards who’d snuffed him.
If it hadn’t hurt too much to move, she would have been pacing like a caged animal.
Instead, she fell asleep.
***
Tristan’s suit—the hand it still had, at any rate—hung to the cargo bar. He’d been stuck in basically the same position since they’d left the moon, and he flexed his arm to get the kinks out. He was thankful that the gauntlet could be locked into hold position which meant that it held on for dear life without any input from him.
The planet drifted below, green and unnatural, and he felt he should be falling towards it. Every time he looked down, it seemed closer than before, but that was all in his mind. To distract himself from thoughts of falling to his death, he listened to the banter on the Tacnet as the Recon flyer approached the dropships.
“Hey, guys, welcome to the party.”
“Looks a little dead to me,” Melina responded.
“Don’t be that way. Every human in three million kilometers is here,” the marine on the other end of the line responded.
“That might be true, but the cover charge was a bitch.”
“Can’t argue with that. Any news from the fleet?”
The four marine dropships had settled into a polar orbit around the planet, calculated to keep them as far away from the enemy swarm as humanly possible while still staying within sensor range—all without burning fuel. Ian, the only person whose ship was designed for long-range communication, had finally managed to make contact with the admiral’s flagship on the way over.
Ian replied. “Nothing good, I’m afraid. They basically congratulated us for being the flower of humanity and wished us luck. They can’t come get us.”
“Well, we can’t go out to them. They’re way out in the ice giant orbits. Dropships can’t get there.”
“I think they know that. Hence the words ‘good luck.’ I think we’re on our own on this one.”
“That’s easy for you to say. Your flyer can make it back.”
“Not with me hanging down here, they can’t,” Tristan chimed in.
“I don’t think it would be particularly healthy to fly through those enemy wings.”
Silence reigned for a few moments. Their situation was bad, and they all knew it.
The silence lasted until it was finally broken minutes later by the leader of the marine contingent. “We’ve taken a decision: we’re heading for the surface.”
“What?” Melina replied. “Are you nuts? Did you see what just came off of that rock?”
“Yeah, lady, we got a really good look. I don’t like it any more than you do, but the truth that everyone except for you two in the fancy Recon ship is going to be running out of air over the next twenty hours or so. We know from the briefing that the planet has a nitrogen and oxygen atmosphere. The fleet isn’t coming for us, so we can either take our chances down there or die up here. Not much of a choice, but it’s the one we have.”
There was silence on the line as the crew of the flyer digested the news. “What do you think, marine? You’re the one on the spot,” Melina asked him over their private channel.
Tristan didn’t need to think about it. His situation was the same one the marines on the dropship had evaluated, and he had no option but to make the same choice. But he was also hanging by one arm from a spaceship. “Can you make reentry gentle enough that I won’t get burned to a crisp?”
Melina laughed. “Soldier, I could put a carrier down on that planet and no one on board would even feel the reentry.”
“I’ll settle for getting down in one piece.”
“Trust me.”
“Then yeah, I vote to land.”
“Ian?”
“Well, I suppose we can’t let him die out there, can we?”
She toggled back to the general channel. “We’re with you. When do you want to head down?”
“How does right now sound?”
“Terrible, but I guess we can survive.”
“Let’s hope so. Wanna lead the way? I know those flyers aren’t heavily armed, but they’re better than dropships. Plus, you can actually avoid stuff and run away if necessary.”
“All right. But we may have to keep it slow. I’ve got this marine hanging off the side of my ship whining that he doesn’t want to get fried. Didn’t know you guys were so fragile.”
Tristan felt the gentle tug of the attitude rockets firing, and then the nose of the Recon flyer pointed towards the green globe below. His stomach suddenly fell behind and he felt the stress of acceleration in his suit. He could hear Ian and Melina discussing the pros and cons of possible landing sites, but he was much more concerned with the atmosphere around him. Air pressure was building up around his suit as they began to encounter the outer edges of the planet’s gas envelope.
“Er… Melina, I’d appreciate it if we didn’t go too much faster.”
“Don’t worry. I said I was going to get you down in one piece, and I intend to.”
She was as good as her word. Though the wind howled around his suit, Melina feathered the power on reentry to keep the speed just below the velocity that would have torn away his grip and sent him tumbling to his death. How exactly she managed it was not something he would ever ask… mainly because every flyboy and flygirl he’d ever met would respond the same way: a superior smirk and the dreaded question: “You weren’t scared, were you?”
Fortunately, his suit was fitted for disposal and processing of bodily waste, so there would be no evidence to the contrary when he told her that he wasn’t.
“Not many places to land, are there?” Ian said.
“No. And I’d prefer somewhere with infrastructure to just a big clearing in the jungle. You’re better than I am at reading those scanners. See anything you like?”
“I’m still not convinced we want to land anywhere near civilization,” Tristan said. “I’m pretty sure I don’t need to remind you that we just got our asses kicked by a huge number of things that came from this planet.”
“We know that. But if we sink into the mud, we’re stuck here until we dig ourselves out. And I don’t want to land in the trees, either. A big patch of concrete or some equivalent likely means a safe landing spot.”
“Right until the black things blow us off the face of the planet.”
“It’s a risk we have to take. Besides, I don’t see any signs of them here. Ian, any readings?”
“No, there’s nothing in the air with us in this hemisphere. Also, I’ve found a good spot to set down. Marking it on the readout.”
“Great to hear.”
The ship’s course corrections we
re minute, but Tristan was convinced that each change of direction would be the one to break the suit’s grip—or maybe just tear the exoskeleton’s limb clean off, quite probably taking Tristan’s arm with it. Of course, he wouldn’t have much time to miss it: just a couple of minutes before he splattered into the scenery below.
“Wow,” Melina said. “You could put a fleet down on that patch.”
“I thought you’d like it. There are some buildings on the west, and the scanners read a huge network of tunnels below, so you may want to set down close to the jungle on the east. That way, if we are flying into an ambush, at least we’ll see it coming.”
Tristan could see the landing field, a large rectangular patch of grey against the green surface, much too regular to be a natural formation.
“Tristan, I’m going to take us down to about three meters up. From then on, I’ll need your input to get you down safely.”
The marine was having none of it. He’d been hanging by his arm for much too long to want to prolong the torture unnecessarily. As soon as the ship stopped descending, and he saw that the feet of his exoskeleton were suspended about an arm’s length in the air, he simply released and dropped the final few centimeters to land with a resounding thud. He moved his arm around in circles and quickly ran out of the way.
“I’m clear, go ahead and land.”
The flyer descended onto the enormous expanse, just clear of the trees that, seemingly unchecked for years, were attempting to recolonize the eastern border of the open space.
Tristan studied the floor, expecting to see a concrete surface, but instead, stared down onto what looked like a gigantic slab of dark grey rock. He looked around for evidence that the surface consisted of smaller units joined together, but the surface extended unbroken as far as he could see.
It was also chipped and cracked, and vegetation poked through in places. It resembled an ancient, abandoned parking lot.
The flyer touched down much more gently than he had. “Should we call in the marines?” Melina said.
“Maybe we should see if it’s safe, first,” Ian replied.
“Wouldn’t you rather have them here if it turns out not to be?”
“Good point, but I meant more along the lines of whether the air is safe to breathe, that kind of thing. If it isn’t, they should probably save their dropship fuel for some other desperate scheme.”
“All right, pop the door and we’ll see what happens.”
Tristan jumped in. “Don’t be stupid. You two have enough air to go anywhere on that thing, so if it isn’t safe, you stand to lose the most by opening up. I’ll test this.”
Without waiting for an answer, he toggled his helmet clamps. Air rushed in through the seal, and he breathed it eagerly. It smelled sweet, ripe with the scent of vegetation, and humid.
After a few deep inhalations, he called to the crew of the flyer. “Well, I’m not sure about microbes, but the air won’t kill you immediately at least.”
He took a few more steps, and then stopped. He felt an unaccustomed weight on his face, so he doubled back and approached the jungle. A number of dried sticks lay on the landing area near the trees, so he picked one up and dropped it to the ground. He chuckled.
“Gravity is higher than Earth-normal. I’d say a G and a half or so. Have fun walking around without an exoskeleton.”
“Yeah, we feel it,” Melina replied. “How’s the air pressure?”
“Good question. I got some equalization when I popped the helmet, so it’s probably pretty high, but haven’t been feeling any pain.”
“All right. I’m going out there.”
The flyer’s door opened to reveal two people wearing space suits without helmets. It seemed to Tristan that, compared to when he’s seen her in the fighter, Melina’s face was sagging under the large gravitational pull from the planet. Ian’s seemed to be sagging, too, but it was hard to tell, as he’d only seen the man through a tinted visor. Perhaps the man had always had jowls that made him resemble a bulldog.
They stood together in the soft light and the warm breeze of a world that was completely new to them. The feeling never got old, no matter the circumstances, so they drank it in while they had a few moments of peace.
“It could be much worse,” Tristan said.
“Yeah, it usually is,” Ian agreed. “I’ve scouted hundreds of worlds, and can only recall a handful where the temperature and the air permitted us to walk around this way. Pity about the gravity, though. These superearths can be tricky. You can fall and break bones.”
“Yeah, that’s why shock marines like to take our skeletons with us. Speaking of which, shouldn’t we call them down? Don’t want to have those guys holding their breath unnecessarily.”
Melina uplinked to the dropships in orbit and gave them the all clear. Then she headed towards the jungle.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see this vegetation.”
The forest consisted of unfamiliar species. There were some trees that looked like the Earth-based species that humanity had modified and brought with them to the stars while others were completely different. Particularly unusual was a bamboo-like plant that grew in a latticework pattern, holding dense mats of light-absorbing leaves about head high.
“Good call on the landing site,” Tristan admitted grudgingly. “I’d have hated to have to walk through that tangle.” He pushed on some stalks until he managed to break one. “Even with a suit, this stuff would make for slow going.”
“Yes.” Tristan could tell that Melina wasn’t really following the conversation. She was looking at the more normal-looking trees and also listening for sounds from within the forest.
“Anything you’d like to share?”
“Not really. I’m trying to see if I can find any clue to understanding the ecosystem here. I don’t see any birds, and I haven’t seen any insects yet. Or whatever the equivalent might be on this planet. If there are no animals, then trees probably won’t be producing fruit. And that means that we may need to get creative when it comes to finding food.”
“Maybe all the animals are further in the jungle. Even on Earth they tend to stay away from inhabited areas.”
“Look at that landing area, trooper. Does it look like an inhabited place that animals might avoid? It hasn’t been maintained in the recent past. Probably not for centuries. Maybe longer if that rock is as durable as it looks.”
“Marines are down,” Ian said.
The four dropships had landed in close formation around the Recon flyer and the marines, ever slaves to habit, were already posting sentries and organizing a scouting party.
Their leader, a grizzled dark-skinned man wearing sergeant’s stripes on his suit, walked over and saluted Melina. “Hello, Commander. I’m Mubarta Sol Mobutu. Wanted to report that we’re down and mostly accounted for.”
“How many of you are there?”
“Twenty-five shock marines plus four dropship pilots, ma’am.”
“Where did you guys come from?”
“We’re the last survivors from the Bard, ma’am. We had to fight our way out. It wasn’t pretty.”
Melina absorbed this with aplomb. Perhaps it was the effect of the gravity on her features, but it seemed to Tristan that she carried some great weight with her. He wondered how old she was. It was difficult to tell; she seemed to be in her late thirties.
“Any suggestions on what to do next?”
“I think we might want to check on the building complex on the western end of this parade ground you selected for a landing site. In the meantime, I’d also recommend creating some kind of shelter in the jungle, preferably not too close to the ships. The canopy should keep us out of sight of anything flying overhead. From the looks of it, nothing can fly through that vegetation.”
“They can always bomb the hell out of the jungle.”
“Yes, ma’am. That’s why I prefer not to be right next to the ships. Anyone bombing us will start with that and work their way out
ward.” He hesitated. “But I really don’t think we need to worry about being bombed. At least not by the black things.”
“Why not?”
“It doesn’t strike me as being their style. I think they win battles by having lots and lots of single guns, not by using individual weapons to clear large areas. Granted, those single guns pack a massive punch.”
“Which means that, if they can’t fly, they can’t effectively come after us.”
“Exactly. Which might explain why someone decided to shut them up on this planet.”
“Huh?”
“Think about it, ma’am. The shield they had wasn’t just a defensive shield. After watching what just happened, I’d bet that it was there more for the purpose of keeping those things contained on this planet than to keep anyone out.”
“Why would the blobs want to keep anyone locked up in one of their forward bases?”
The marine shrugged, and his suit shrugged with him. “I haven’t seen anything that looks remotely like blob hardware here. And I’ve been in enough fights with them to know what they like to use. I don’t know what was on those two moon bases, but I’d bet that it wasn’t blob stuff either.”
Tristan started. “You’re right, Sergeant,” he said. “I was there, and it definitely wasn’t a blob installation. The defenders looked more like something humans would have designed than blobs. Probably wasn’t a human building, though—the doors are the wrong shape for us. But it wasn’t blob-made, I’m pretty sure of that.”
Melina hesitated, thinking back to the fighters on the moon that had been so ineffective against her own wing. They hadn’t matched any of the blob designs she’d seen anywhere either.
“And those wings sure as hell aren’t blob craft or we’d have lost this war long ago,” the sergeant said.
“So where are the blobs? This system was supposed to be swarming with them?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care. I’ve got enough to worry about with the flying wings. And now that I think about it, I don’t want to run into whoever was badass enough not only to defeat them but to lock them up intact and alive. What happened to the shield, anyway? Woulda been nice for that to stay up.”
Incursion: Shock Marines Page 13