Buehl bent his head into his arm to cover his face, trying not to let the others see the emotions overcoming him. "My little girls," was all he could get out. "I'll never see them again. I can't believe this is it. After everything we've been through. This is how it ends?"
Captain Joseph Hill looked at the life raft as it bounced off their ship, then he turned and looked at the two men around him, his eyes turning steely and hard. "Pull yourselves together, both of you. You are elite members of this galaxy's most badass unit, and you're going to just give up like this?" His face twisted in disgust, "I thought better of you."
"We are done, you idiot!" Buehl shouted. "Finished! We have no life raft, we aren't anywhere near enough to a planet to land, and even if we were, we don't have the engine power left to slow our descent. It's over. It's just…over."
"Not acceptable," Hill said. He had pressed his back against the wall to keep himself steady as the ship turned. "Lieutenant Kelly, what are our other options besides just staying here waiting to die? Give me something. Anything!"
Frank blinked rapidly, trying to clear his head. "Uh…we have two Baumgartner suits. I snuck them on board in my gear."
"We're too far away from any planet to jump, Frank," Buehl said with a short laugh. "Anyway, you only brought two. Which one of us gets to stay here and burn up in the atmosphere?"
"What is the nearest planet?" Hill shouted over him. When Buehl didn't move, Hill shouted again, "Sergeant Buehl, check the console to determine the nearest hospitable planet!"
Buehl finally clambered down to his pilot's chair and got enough of a grip on it to type several commands on the screen. He was upside down, and had to grab the console with both hands to steady himself enough to read it. "We're eighteen hundred kilometers from a hospitable planet, captain," he called out.
"All right," Hill said, looking back and forth from the men to the corridor. "If we divert all power to the engines we can make an approach," he muttered to himself. There were fat beads of sweat pouring down his face as he looked up at Kelly and said, "You and the sergeant, report to the cargo bay and prepare to jump. Now."
Frank took a deep breath and held it. He felt like he was going to be sick. "Captain, listen. I'm not jumping. I brought those suits to maroon you and Simone. I was going to hijack the ship from you to rescue Vic and Monster. I'm staying. You go with Buehl. I'll get you there."
Hill pulled his way across the cockpit until he was close enough to Frank to put his hand on the man's arm and said, "Not too long ago, I heard you talk about a captain you respected because no matter what, he would find a way to win. Do you remember that? A captain worth fighting for. A captain worth dying for. Remember?"
Frank nodded.
"I listened to that because I knew if I was ever going to lead Grendel, I needed to be that kind of man. That kind of leader. Well, here it is, Lieutenant. I'm not letting that bastard Yultorot win. The two of you are going to find him and make him pay. Is that clear? You will make him pay, and we will win. All of us. Because no matter what it takes, this team refuses to ever surrender!"
Frank felt his eyes stinging with tears as he nodded and said, "Roger that, sir."
Hill pointed at Buehl and said, "Now get out of my chair and hurry down to the cargo hold. We don't have much time."
Frank watched the captain flip upside down to slide himself into the pilot's seat and activate the emergency restraints. Hill grabbed the controls with both hands and said, "I'm setting a course for your little planet, Bob. I hope whatever is living down there doesn't mind unexpected visitors." Hill looked up into the mirror and said, "Well? What are you two waiting for? Get going."
"Good luck, captain," Frank said quietly. Both he and Buehl stood there silently, looking at Hill as he worked the controls.
"I'm going to accelerate toward the planet with the remaining fuel we have. You will both have a limited jump window. I'm diverting all the ship's remaining systems to the engines and life support. I'm going to do my best, boys, but it's going to be by the skin of your necks. Make it count!" Hill said.
Frank tapped Buehl on the arm and waved for him to follow down the corridor. They were quiet as they navigated the floating field of clipboards and data discs as they crossed the corridor, making their way toward the cargo hold. Frank grabbed his gear bag out of the rack and yanked, freeing the straps from the dozens of other gear that had come loose and was now pinning the bag to the wall. He pulled it close and pushed himself with both feet from the shelving unit, floating through the void like a man pushing off of the edge of a pool, aiming for the incredibly small doorway at the opposite side.
The ship was eerily silent, save for the metallic ding of a dozen loose items bouncing off of the walls and windows.
Buehl grabbed the lip of the door with the tips of his fingers and pulled, forcing the door to open. They swam up to the door blocking the cargo hold, each of them with a strap from Frank's gear bag in their hands, using it to stay together. Frank opened the bag and pulled out the first tightly bundled suit and handed it to Buehl, silently telling him to put it on. The air was too thin to properly breathe, let alone speak, and they wouldn't have comms until they fastened their helmets to their suits. Buehl undid the bundle and quickly crawled inside the loose black suit, sticking his arms and legs through it and zipping it all the way up to his neck. He gave Frank the thumbs up and Frank did the same, and the moment he dropped the helmet down over his face and sealed it, he heard the familiar buzz of radio transmissions. It was Captain Hill, saying, "Mayday, mayday, broadcasting on all Unification channels. We are going down. Two survivors will be launched from these coordinates. Send rescue immediately, I repeat, send rescue immediately."
Frank touched the side of his helmet and said, "Captain, we're suited up."
There was a slight pause, but then Hill said, "We're approaching the planet's atmosphere. Prepare to launch."
Frank and Buehl both buckled their gear bags to their harnesses and clutched the door's frame, waiting nervously for it to open. "Units are in position, captain," Frank said.
"Good luck, gentlemen," Hill said over the comm.
"Hey," Frank said quickly, looking up at Buehl as he clung to the cargo doors. Buehl nodded, and Frank took a deep breath. "I just wanted you to know, you made me proud to be a Grendel today. Me and Bob both." Frank felt his eyes burning and said, "You meet us down on the planet, whatever it takes, all right?"
"Hooah," Hill said into the comm.
The door flew open and both of them were sucked into the cargo bay, bouncing against the floor before they were coughed into space, spinning in the air as they tumbled toward the bright blue planet beneath them. The planet's gravitational pull was so strong, Frank worried his helmet might tear off. In that moment of panic, Hill's voice came through, clear and confident, saying, "Control to jump units, you should be entering the upper atmosphere now. The bright blue blur you've been seeing now has some color to it, I imagine."
Frank looked down and saw that he could make out continents and mountain ridges below, and it was like the entire planet was hurtling toward them. "Roger that," Frank said, forcing the words out of his mouth. "We are on course for chute deployment in three seconds."
"Good," Hill said. "Remember what I said. You find that bastard and make this count."
"I promise," Frank said, raising his head into the merciless wind just in time to see the bright streak of light across the sky as the ship burst into flames, trailing long funnels of black smoke. There was a bright flash in the sky like a meteor and the explosion rippled through Frank's suit like a shockwave, sending him spinning end over end, with the comm channel in his helmet blaring nothing but static.
There was a loud pop and he was jerked upwards so hard that he thought his shoulders might dislocate, but then he was covered a large shadow from his parachute deploying and his decent became a long, slow glide down through the sky. Pieces of the old ship burned to cinders upon entering the atmosphere, falling like a thousand
small comets. The ancients of Earth would have called the debris shooting stars, but these are not stars, Frank thought. Just the flaming embers of a ruined ship and a brave man's body.
Frank saw whole fields of trees emerge beneath him, their tops swaying slightly in the planet's light breeze. It was a vibrantly-colored place, filled with sweeping hills and meadows. There was a wheat field ahead of them, and Frank pointed at it to show Buehl that was where they should land. Both men pulled their chute's straps to the right, gliding gently toward the site.
Their backpacks released small jets of compressed air to slow them, easing them down onto the long, rolling waves of green grass that sparkled in the sunlight. Frank unfastened his harness and pulled off his helmet, then mopped the sweat from his face. Neither he nor Buehl spoke as both of them numbly went through the routine procedure of opening their gear bags and setting up emergency beacons, small boxes with a long antenna that would broadcast a distress call and their location. Buehl looked up at the sky and took a deep breath, glad to be on the ground and able to breathe clean air, despite everything that had happened. "How long do you think before someone finds us?" he said.
"Not long," Frank said. "When General Milner finds out his son has been killed, it won't take him very long to find us at all."
The Grendel Unit Series Continues
Grendel Unit 1: Bad Day at Khor-wa
Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence
Grendel Unit 3: Fight the Power
Grendel Unit 4: Any Means Necessary (COMING SOON)
Also read: Grendel Unit and Far From Home: Sun Hammer 2 (Suicide Planet)
About the Author
Bernard Schaffer is the author of multiple books that span a wide variety of genres, including modern American literature, police procedurals, and science fiction westerns. He has worked on several projects with famous authors such as Harlan Ellison, Alan Dean Foster, and Bill Thompson (the editor who discovered Stephen King and John Grisham). In 2011, Schaffer founded KAS, a select group of independent authors that donates proceeds to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
Recently, he collaborated with J.A. Konrath on two books that feature Konrath's best-selling Lt. Jack Daniels characters, and ones from Schaffer's own Superbia series.
Aside from writing, Schaffer is a lifelong resident of the Philadelphia area and the proud father of two children. He is a decorated police detective and expert in narcotics distribution.
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SUPERBIA
The best-selling real world look at the lives of the men and women who protect and serve. The Superbia books have been hailed as the funniest, scariest, most subversive police series ever written.
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GRENDEL UNIT
The best-selling science fiction series about four loveable covert operatives who do whatever it takes to hunt down terrorists.
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GRENDEL UNIT/FAR FROM HOME: SUN HAMMER 2
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GUNS OF SENECA 6
The Rise of the Old West, Again. On a distant planet, at the farthest reaches of the universe, is a world filled with outlaws, natives, and gunslingers. A science fiction mashup of Old West mythology and steampunk adventure.
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OLD TIME LAWMEN (Chamber 2)
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IMMACULATE KILLERS (Chamber 4)
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Jack the Ripper vs. Sherlock Holmes
WHITECHAPEL: THE FINAL STAND OF SHERLOCK HOLMES
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THE GIRL FROM TENERIFE
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BILLIONAIRE'S APPRENTICE
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TINY DRAGONS 1: THE SKY DRAGONS
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Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence
Bernard Schaffer
Published by Dia de los Toros Publications
Edited by Laurie Laliberte
Copyright 2014 Bernard Schaffer
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. No reference to any real person, living or dead, should be inferred.
Grendel Unit 2: Ignition Sequence Page 10