by David Weber
"Please fill out the requisition while I get it, Milady," he said.
Honor began tapping keys. The sergeant watched her a moment, then turned away toward the weapons storage, only to stop as Honor spoke again.
"I need filled ten-round magazines. Ten of them. And four boxes of shells."
"I—" The sergeant cut himself off and nodded. "Yes, Milady. Ten charged magazines and two hundred rounds in the box."
He vanished into the weapons storage, and Henke stepped up to Honor's side. She watched the long fingers tapping memo keys with slow, painful precision, and her own face was troubled. The Star Kingdom's military hadn't used chemical-powered firearms in over three T-centuries, for no firearm ever made could match the single-hit lethality of the hyper-velocity darts of a pulser or pulse rifle. A man hit in the hand by a pulser dart might—if he was very, very lucky—survive with the mere loss of his arm, and that made auto-loading pistols antiques, yet every Manticoran warship carried a few of them, precisely because their wounds were survivable. They were always available, and always in the traditional ten-millimeter caliber, yet never issued for duty use; they had only one function, and as long as duels were legal they were carried for those who wished to practice with them.
But they could be used for other purposes.
Honor finished filling out the requisition form and thumbprinted the scan pad, then slid the memo board back across the counter. She stood there, hands at her sides, waiting, until the sergeant returned.
"Here you are, Milady." He laid the heavy, bolstered pistol and a set of ear-protectors on the counter, his reluctance obvious. He followed them with a second pair, their connector strip adjusted to something approximating the size of a treecat's head, though Honor hadn't requested them, then placed an ammunition carrier beside them with even greater reluctance.
"Thank you." Honor scooped up the pistol and attached its magnetic pad to her belt, then reached for the protectors with one hand and the ammunition with the other, but Henke's hand snapped out. It came down on the ammunition carrier, pinning it to the counter, and Honor looked at her.
"Honor, I—" Henke began, but her voice died. How could she ask her best friend the question she had to ask? Yet if she didn't, how could she live with the consequences if—
"Don't worry, Mike." There was no life, no expression, in Honor's voice, but her mouth moved in a cold, dead travesty of a smile. "Nimitz won't let me do that. Besides," the first trace of feeling touched her face—an ugly, hungry twist of her lips, more sensed than seen and somehow more frightening than anything she'd done or said yet, "I have something more important to do."
Henke stared into her eyes for a moment, then sighed and lifted her hand. Honor slid the ammunition carrier off the counter, looping the strap over her left shoulder and settling the heavy pouch at her side. She nodded once to Henke, then looked at the armorer.
"Program the range, Sergeant. Standard Manticoran gravity on the plates. Set the range gate for forty meters. Human targets."
She turned without another word, and stepped through the firing range hatch.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
" Prince Adrian, this is Hephaestus Central. Stand by for final departure clearance."
Captain Alistair McKeon nodded to his helmsman to stand ready and pressed the com stud on the arm of his command chair.
"Prince Adrian copies standby for final departure clearance, Hephaestus. Holding."
"Understood, Prince Adrian." There was a moment of silence while the controller double-checked his board. Then—"You are cleared, Prince Adrian."
"Prince Adrian copies clearance. Undocking," McKeon responded, and looked back at the helmsman. "Disengage mooring tractors."
"Disengage mooring tractors, aye, Sir." The helmsman depressed half a dozen buttons. "Tractors disengaged, Sir."
"Check our zone, Beth."
"Checking zone, aye, Sir." The tactical officer made a quick sensor sweep, and McKeon waited patiently. He'd once seen what happened when a battlecruiser failed to do that and a shuttle pilot had strayed into the departure zone. "Zone clear, Sir. Five small yard craft at two-one-eight zero-niner-five, range two-five kilometers. Apollo bears zero-three-niner, same plane. Range seven-point-five klicks."
"Confirmed on maneuvering plot, Sir," the helmsman reported.
"Very good. Forward thrusters."
"Engaging forward thrusters, aye, Sir." The heavy cruiser trembled as she eased out of her berth, and McKeon watched the cavernous docking bay move back and away on the visual display.
"Hold her on her present heading," he said. The helmsman acknowledged, and McKeon switched his visual display to starboard just as Apollo slid stern first out of her own berth. Their courses diverged sharply, pushing them apart to clear the safety perimeters of their impeller wedges, and McKeon depressed an intraship com stud.
"Colonel Ramirez," a deep voice answered.
"Departure on schedule, Colonel. Our ETA looks good."
"Thank you, Sir. We appreciate the assistance."
"Least we can do, Colonel," McKeon replied, and leaned back in his chair as he cut the circuit.
Colonel Tomas Ramirez and Major Susan Hibson had been shocked by their latest readiness tests. While no one could fault the willingness of HMS Nike's Marine detachment, the entire battalion was sadly out of training. The influx of replacements and corresponding transfer out of experienced personnel had only made bad worse, and Colonel Ramirez and his able exec had concluded that Something Had To Be Done, whether Nike was operational or not. After all, Royal Manticoran Marines shouldn't stand around and lose their edge just because the sissies who ran the Navy broke one of their ships!
A quick memo up the chain of command earned the endorsement of no less a personage than General Dame Erica Vonderhoff, Commanding Officer, Fleet Marine Force. Of course, COFMF couldn't issue orders to the Navy; the best she could do was authorize Ramirez to request troop lift support on an "as available" basis with her blessings.
The Navy had been sympathetic, but Colonel Ramirez's request to Training and Support Command had been greeted with regrets; the Fleet would need at least a week to free up the lift for a battalion-level training drop. Training and Support would be happy to schedule them ASAP, but in the meantime, why not carry out high orbit insertions from Hephaestus? After all, the space station orbited Manticore itself, and the Star Kingdoms capital planet offered suitable training areas in abundance. What about, say, Camp Justin in High Sligo? That was about hip-deep in snow just now, which ought to offer plenty of scope for toughening Nike's Marines back up. Or, if Colonel Ramirez would prefer desert, how about Camp Maastricht in the Duchy of West Wind?
But the colonel had his heart set on Gryphon. Troops as appallingly out of fighting trim as his were needed really challenging terrain, and few things in life were as challenging as Gryphon in winter. Not only did the planet's extreme axial tilt make for... interesting weather patterns, but half of it was still virgin wilderness.
Unfortunately, they couldn't get to Gryphon from Hephaestus. The components of the Manticore Binary System were just past periastron, but the GO and G2 companion stars were still almost eleven light-hours apart. Nike's pinnaces would have required two and a half Manticoran days to make the trip, which was twice their maximum life-support endurance with full troop loads.
It had seemed Colonel Ramirez would have to settle for Camp Justin after all, but Fate works in mysterious ways. He mentioned his problem to Captain McKeon over a round of drinks one evening, and the captain saw an opportunity to help improve interservice relations. He and Commander Venizelos of HMS Apollo were due to participate in a defensive exercise in Manticore-B, and, with a little crowding, their ships could lift Nike's full Marine detachment plus its pinnaces to Gryphon with just a short hop through hyper.
Colonel Ramirez had accepted the offer with the Corps' thanks, and so it happened that HMS Prince Adrian, HMS Apollo, and just under six hundred additional Marines departed HMSS Hephaestus fo
r Gryphon right on schedule.
"Now why would you want to come along, Scotty?" Susan Hibson asked.
Lieutenant Scotty Tremaine, HMS Prince Adrian's assistant tactical officer, who doubled as the heavy cruiser's boat bay control officer, watched her unwrap a fresh stick of gum. Tremaine considered gum-chewing one of humanity's more disgusting vices, but he made allowances for the major. He'd known her quite a while and seen her do some very good things during the Blackbird Raid. Besides, it wasn't her fault she spent so much of her time inside a suit of battle armor. That was probably enough to warp anyone a little, and there weren't a lot of other things a person could do for relaxation with the equivalent of a pre-space main battle tank wrapped around her. There were, after all, only so many targets one could blow up, shoot into very tiny pieces, or tear apart by brute strength.
Now she slid the gum into her mouth and chewed rhythmically, and he shrugged under the weight of her eyes.
"The Colonel needs a pilot, Ma'am."
"He's got a pilot," Hibson pointed out. "A reasonably competent fellow he brought all the way from Nike with him."
"Yes, Ma'am. But I'm worried about his nav systems." He met Hibson's gaze with total innocence. "Chief Harkness and I have run a complete diagnostic series without managing to isolate a fault, but I'm pretty sure there is one."
"Oh?" Hibson leaned back and popped her gum thoughtfully. Lieutenant Tremaine hadn't been briefed for the operation, but that didn't seem to have kept him from figuring things out. "Is it bad enough to downcheck the boat?"
"Oh, I wouldn't say that, Ma'am. It's just that the Chief and I would feel better if we were along to ride herd on the systems. And, of course, if something did happen to go wrong, he and I would be on the spot to make repairs... and verify the fault for the record."
Hibson raised an eyebrow. "Have you mentioned your concern to Captain McKeon?"
"Yes, Ma'am. The Skipper says the pinnaces are your and Colonel Ramirez's responsibility, but if you'd care to ask for a little Fleet technical support just in case, he's willing to detach the Chief and me for a few days."
"I see." Hibson popped her gum a couple of more times, then shrugged. "I'll take it up with the Colonel, then. If he says you can tag along, it's all right with me."
"Now hear this. Now hear this. Drop point in thirty minutes. Ninth Battalion, man drop stations. Ninth Battalion, man drop stations."
Men and women looked up as the announcement rattled from the speakers in HMS Prince Adrian's Marine Country. The two companies of Nike's Marines scheduled to make the drop in heavy assault configuration were already armored up; their more fortunate fellows put down coffee cups, playing cards, and book viewers and began climbing into their skinsuits while they invoked traditional and time-honored maledictions upon the designers of their equipment. Navy skinsuits were designed primarily for vacuum, with an eye to allowing their wearers to engage in delicate repair work and similarly intricate activities over what could be very lengthy periods indeed. Marine skinnies, on the other hand, while undeniably more comfortable than powered battle armor, were heavier, bulkier, and generally far more of a pain in the ass than Navy gear, because they incorporated light but highly effective body armor and were intended for hostile planetary environments as well as vacuum. As long as the wearer's efficiency wasn't impaired, comfort ran a poor second to toughness under the Marine design philosophy, but even the Corps' most accomplished bitchers had to admit that the worst a Gryphon—or even a Sphinx—winter could offer would do little more than inconvenience a skinsuited Marine. Which, given the mission briefs weather reports, was probably a very good thing.
Orders rapped out as Nike's Marines formed up in Prince Adrian's boat bays. Some of the heavy cruiser's own Marines ambled by to see them off, with looks that varied from commiseration to comfortable enjoyment of someone else's misfortune. Nike's Marines responded with pooh-pooh expressions and false enthusiasm, comforting themselves with the reflection that their hosts would find themselves in similar situations soon enough. What went around, came around; that was one of the Corps' imperishable truths. Besides, scuttlebutt said this particular operation was in a more worthy cause than most.
Scotty Tremaine settled himself in the copilot's seat of Nike One, Colonel Ramirez's command pinnace. Major Hibson would ride in Nike Two, ready to take over if something happened to the colonel's com systems; Captain Tyler, operating from Apollo's boat bay in Nike Three, would be equally ready to back up the major. Coxswain Petty Officer First Class Hudson regarded the lieutenant with hooded eyes, then bent forward to bring his internal systems on-line. He'd just detached the pinnace umbilicals when a senior chief with a prize fighter's battered face poked his head into the cramped cockpit.
"Looking good so far, Mr. Tremaine," Horace Harkness announced, then winked. "Still got a tiny glitch in the nav systems, though. I've logged it."
"Good, Chief. I'll keep an eye on things from up here," Tremaine replied with no expression at all.
"Yes, Sir."
Harkness disappeared, and Tremaine's earbug crackled with Colonel Ramirez's voice.
"How's it looking, Hudson?"
"Hatches sealed... now, Sir," Hudson replied as a red telltale flicked to green on his panel. "Docking tube retracted. Ready to launch, Sir."
"Good. Inform the duty control officer and proceed on his release."
"Aye, aye, Sir," Hudson acknowledged, and switched from intercom to his intership link.
Seven pinnaces separated from the heavy cruiser and her light cruiser consort. Thrusters blazed at full power, but they left their impeller wedges down as they arrowed toward the blue and white marble so far below. This was a full dress rehearsal; they not only ran silent to avoid any betraying scrap of com chatter but killed every readily detectable system, even their internal grav plates, and scorched down on the huge, curdled weather system assaulting Gryphon's southern hemisphere at their maximum safe reentry speed.
Noses and leading edges of wings and stabilators began to glow as they hit atmosphere. Their passengers had been briefed on the flight conditions they could expect and clung grimly to their equipment as the pinnaces began to buffet. However rough the ride was now, it was going to get worse.
Howling winds and driving snow awaited them, and their pilots were in airfoil mode, without even counter-grav as they drove into the teeth of the winter storm. Pinnaces were made for such conditions, but no one had yet found a way to reengineer human stomachs. A few passengers grinned at their neighbors with the cheerful brutality of the immune; others fought grim battles to hang onto their lunches, and a handful of unfortunate souls lost them.
Turbines howled louder than the storm, slicing down to get below the worst of the weather and close on their designated LZs, and Captain Alistair McKeon smiled at his tracking reports. Six of the pinnaces were dead on course; the seventh had already vanished from his scanner area, veering off into some of the worst weather on the planet.
Senior Chief Petty Officer Harkness poked his head back into the cockpit with a toothy smile.
"Yes, Chief?" Tremaine never looked up from his instruments. PO Hudson was doing a dynamite job, but these weren't the weather conditions for anyone's attention to wander on the flight deck.
"Just thought you'd like to know, Sir. The nav systems must've just packed up completely, 'cause they say we're over thirty degrees off course."
"Scandalous, Chief. Just scandalous. I suppose you may as well shut the recorders down. No point logging an erroneous course, after all. PO Hudson and I'll just have to do the best we can."
Tomas Ramirez patted his equipment with an absent hand, checking his gear out of ingrained habit even as he watched his display. Nike One was further off course with every second—because of the storm, no doubt. The colonel smiled thinly, then looked up as someone appeared beside him.
"Why aren't you strapped in, Marine?" he began, then stopped, and his eyebrows knitted in an ominous frown before he shook his head with a sigh.
"Sar'major Babcock, would you mind telling me just what the hell you think you're doing here?" His tone was more resigned than his words might have suggested, and Iris Babcock snapped to attention.
"Sir! The sergeant-major respectfully reports that she seems to have become confused, Sir! I was under the impression this was one of Prince Adrian's pinnaces, Colonel."
Ramirez shook his head again. "Won't wash, Gunny. Prince Adrian doesn't even have the Mark Thirty yet."
"Sir, I—"
"Hold it right there." The colonel turned to glare at Francois Ivashko, his own battalion sergeant-major. "I don't suppose you happened to log Sar'major Babcock as an observer supernumerary, did you, Gunny?"
"Uh, no, Sir," Ivashko said. "But—"
"Well, in that case, get her logged now. I'm surprised at you, Gunny! You know how important the proper paperwork is. Now I'm going to have to clear this retroactively with Major Yestachenko and Captain McKeon!"
"Yes, Sir. Sorry, Sir. I guess I just dropped the ball, Sir," Ivashko said with a sudden, huge grin.
"Don't let it happen again," Ramirez growled, then shook a finger under Babcock's nose. "As for you, Sar'major, get back in your seat. And stay where I can keep an eye on you to make sure you behave dirt-side. Understood?"
"Aye, aye, Sir!"
"Nike Flight, this is Nike Two," Susan Hibson said into her com, her voice clear and composed. "Nike Two has lost track on Nike One and is assuming command until Nike One reestablishes contact. Two clear."
She leaned back in her seat and smiled down at her panel with a trace of regret. Life's a bitch, she told herself, but someone has to mind the store... and the Colonel outranks me.
"Snowfall" was too passive a word for what was happening around the isolated hunting chalet. A sixty kilometer-per-hour wind drove the flakes before it like a solid wall, screaming around the chalet's eaves so violently no one could have said where the ground ended and the white hurricane began, so one might reasonably have expected any sane person to be safely indoors.