by Rick Shelley
“Stand by for maneuvering,” the shuttle pilot announced. Long Snake had already expanded to cover most of the monitor screen. More details were visible. Lon felt the pull as the shuttle worked to match speed with the ship.
“It won’t be long now,” Dean said. “This part always goes faster than you’d think.”
Lon did not answer. He just stared at the monitor, fascinated. The pilot of the civilian shuttle that had taken him to Over-Galapagos had done the same thing, let her passengers watch the approach. But the geostationary habitat was so much larger than Long Snake, large enough to hold twenty-five thousand residents in comfort, along with everything a community of that size needed—stores, schools, churches, factories, warehouses.
There were several short bursts from the shuttle’s maneuvering rockets, then nothing. They were on-line, and at the proper speed. The lighted landing bay filled the monitor. The shuttle was parallel to the ship, moving in at a gentle angle. At the last instant, there would be one more short thrust from the maneuvering rockets, enough to kill the shuttle’s momentum completely just as it came to rest inside the hangar, where shipboard grapples would latch on and anchor it.
Lon waited for some feeling of impact, but the docking went smoothly. It was not until the grapples took hold of the shuttle that he felt anything, and then it was more the pull of the ship’s artificial gravity than any motion of the shuttle’s. By that time the pilot had switched off the monitors.
“We’re here,” Phip announced unnecessarily. He hit the release on his safety harness. None of the others in the squad did. They had not been given the order.
“How long does it take to close the hatch and cycle air into the hangar so we can get out?” Lon asked.
“In a hurry to go somewhere?” Phip asked.
“Just curious. This is my first time, remember?”
“The process only takes about three minutes,” Janno said. “That doesn’t mean we’ll get the order to move that soon. We may sit here until the entire battalion’s aboard, just in case there are problems with one of the later shuttles.”
“What sort of problems?” Lon asked.
“He means in case a shuttle pilot botches docking and smashes into the ship with enough force to knock us all on our butts,” Phip said.
“That happen often?” Lon could not do the math in his head, but he suspected that it would take a lot of speed for a shuttle to have any noticeable effect on a ship the size of Long Snake.
“Once is all it takes,” Phip said, almost cheerfully.
Eight minutes passed before the order came to unfasten safety harnesses and get ready to board the ship. The click of buckles being released came as one sound. Lon stood, carefully, even though the artificial gravity was more than 90 percent of Dirigent’s surface gravity.
“Nolan, stick damn close to the squad,” Corporal Girana said, moving out into the aisle. “I don’t want you getting lost between here and our compartment.” Lon nodded. He had planned on sticking with his squadmates.
“Okay, people,” Lieutenant Taiters said from next to one of the two exits. “Let’s move out, sharply. The sooner we get out of the way of traffic, the better.”
5
“Thirty seconds to Q-space insertion.” The announcement blared over every speaker in Long Snake. There had been frequent reminders during the past two hours. Every piece of loose gear had been secured. Lon was in his bunk in third platoon’s barracks bay. He checked the straps across his chest and waist, to make sure they had not come loose in the minute since he had last checked them.
This would be the final Q-space transit of the voyage to Norbank. The battalion had been en route for eleven and a half days. Just routine, Lon told himself as he mentally counted down the seconds. Powerful as they were, Long Snake’s Nilssen generators were not able to perform both of their functions at once. For the duration of the Q-space transit, the ship would be without its artificial gravity.
“Ten seconds to Q-space insertion.” The synthetic voice counted those seconds down, finishing with, “Q-space insertion.” There was a shudder as the Nilssens cycled up to full power, creating the field distortion that wrapped a bubble universe around the ship.
Long Snake vibrated noticeably. Lon’s head ached dully. His stomach felt queasy. Those were normal sensations, always accompanying the full stressing of Nilssens through Q-space. They would last until the transit ended, then fade over a period of two or three minutes after the Nilssens started propagating artificial gravity again.
It had not been an idle voyage for the second battalion of Seventh Regiment. Except for the hiatuses of the Q-space transits, the men had spent their days training, maintaining their physical conditioning, and studying the preliminary assault plan for Norbank. They knew where each company would land, what they would be called upon to do in the first minutes and hours after landfall … if the situation had not changed materially.
“Don’t count too much on any of this remaining valid,” Sergeant Dendrow had told the platoon after their first complete operational briefing. “It would be nice, but all of the information it’s built on will be more than a month old before we land. We’ll get new data, we hope, when we come out of Q-space after our final jump. We’ll be in Norbank’s system then, close enough for direct communication with the government.”
Inside its Q-space envelope, Long Snake realigned itself, stressing the proper point on the bubble for just the proper time to come out at the right place. The equations that defined Q-space and were behind the operation of the Nilssens treated the “normal” universe as a point mass. The speed-of-light limit was never violated. The stay in Q-space was almost four minutes, near the longest the delicate maneuvering ever took. And once more there was a countdown over the speakers. The ship emerged from Q-space. The vibrations ended. The Nilssens started to cycle up the gravity, taking forty-five seconds to get it to shipboard normal.
“Okay, you can get out of your racks now,” Corporal Girana said. “Down’s where your feet go again.”
“How long do you think it’ll be before we know whether or not the plans remain the same?” Lon asked his squad-mates as they unbuckled the straps that had secured them to their beds.
“Hard telling,” Janno said. “We’ve got three days or more, depending on how close to Norbank we came out. I imagine they’re already opening contact with the government—if the government’s still around. If the rebels have knocked them out, it’s anybody’s guess.”
“Don’t even think about something like that,” Phip said. “If the contracting government’s out, we’ll either turn around and go home, or try to find a place to land so we can put them back in. Either way, it’d be a royal pain in the ass. We go home, it’s no contract pay and wasted time. We go in, then we’ve got to start from scratch, with no local support to count on.”
“What if the rebellion’s already over?” Lon asked. “What if the government managed to put it down without us?”
“At least we’d have our training set to look forward to,” Dean said. “Making proper soldiers out of the Norbankers.”
“And that won’t be easy if they’ve won their war without us,” Phip said. “They’ll be right cocky bastards, thinking they know it all already. Make our job twice as hard. Three times.”
It was eighteen hours later before they learned anything more. Ship’s time had been synchronized with time in Norbank’s settled area. The men of the battalion had had a short “night.” Immediately after breakfast the next morning, there was an officers’ call. Once more, Lon was included in that briefing.
“Throw out the plans we’ve been working on” was the way that Lieutenant Colonel Flowers opened the session. He shrugged. “We knew that was likely to happen. The situation on the ground has changed considerably. The rebel army has managed to besiege the capital. Their numbers are now estimated to be near our own, according to the latest information from the surface. That means they probably actually outnumber us, at least slightly.
“We have renegotiated the contract to reflect the changed circumstances, the fact that we will have to break the siege before we proceed to the rest of the mission. Of particular importance is the fact that the rebels control the only improved spaceport on Norbank, and the area of the capital still controlled by government forces is not large enough to let us set down peacefully inside the capital. We’ll be in range of the rebels—and, yes, they do have antiair rockets, or we have to assume that they do. There are two ways we could go on this. We could make a fighting landing, put down right where we need to be to make an … impression, or we can put down farther back, away from the front lines, and move in to make our attack.
“The government wants us to hit directly, on the way in, as the fastest way to hurt the rebels and end the siege. I vetoed that. It might be too costly in casualties. We’ll try to find a landing zone close enough to get us into action quickly, but without risking losing shuttles and men before we’re in position to defend ourselves.” Flowers paused and looked around.
“It does look as if we’re going to earn our pay on this contract.”
There were detailed charts now, photographs and maps that had been compiled from them. Every commissioned and noncommissioned officer had a mapboard, a specialized complink node that could display any of the computer cartography with various enhancements and overlays. The computers in Long Snake’s Combat Information Center served the network of mapboards. As long as the ship remained in normal space over Norbank, with the area of operations in line of sight, the charts could be updated continuously to show the movement of troops, friendly and hostile. Rebel positions were plotted slowly as the ship approached the world, based on direct sensor information and on news relayed from the capital.
“Right up to the last minute, all of the details about our landing will remain tentative,” Lieutenant Taiters told his two platoons twenty-four hours before the scheduled deployment. “The only thing we can count on is that we’re going in.” He shrugged. “Our landing will probably be on the north side of First River. That’s where the majority of both armies are, and since the rebels have destroyed the capital’s only bridge across the river, landing on the south side would be … pointless.” He hesitated. “Even if the bridge was still intact, we would probably be going in on the north bank. A narrow wooden bridge does not inspire confidence.” DMC policy was to share as much information as possible about operations with all ranks, to give everyone enough data to permit independent action when necessary, and to give the men a sense of participation. During the planning stage, the men were encouraged to make any suggestions that came to mind. In the field, orders were still orders, though. Discipline had to be tight.
“Alpha Company will be first in,” Taiters continued. “Our immediate job will be to secure the LZ”—landing zone—”for the rest of the battalion, to neutralize any rebel forces close enough to pose a hazard to the landing. That should be fairly simple, since the plan is to put us down far enough away from any concentration of rebels that they won’t be able to reach the LZ before the entire battalion is on the ground. That would mean the only possible problem would come by chance, if a rebel force should happen to happen by where we want to land while we’re on the way in.”
He went on to display photographs and charts of three possible landing zones, talking about their locations and differences. “If possible, we’ll go in at one of these places. Familiarize yourselves with all three.”
Taiters turned the platoons over to the platoon sergeants and squad leaders. The noncoms drilled their men on the map data, all three potential LZs, and the territory between them and the enemy circle around Norbank City.
“We’re scheduled to land just before sunset. That will give us the entire night for operations,” Corporal Girana told his squad. The darkness promised to be a big advantage for the mercenaries. Their night-vision systems would allow them freedom of movement and action. According to the available information, only a small percentage of the rebels had any night-vision gear. And it was a basic tenet that untrained men would fight poorly in the dark, especially against fully equipped veteran, professional soldiers.
There would be no physical training, drills, or work details for the men during the last twenty-four hours. Apart from meals and the recurrent briefings, they had nothing to do but make final checks of their weapons and combat gear … and to get as much sleep as possible—with pills if it would come no other way. Once they were on the ground, sleep might he hard to find. Sleep, food, and equipment checks were the important things. Going into combat, every bit of electronic gear was subjected to intensive testing to make absolutely certain it was working. Anything that was in any way questionable was replaced.
“Nolan, from the minute our shuttle kisses dirt, I want you at my elbow, all the time,” Girana said when he finally dismissed the squad—sent them for a meal, “unless the lieutenant or captain have other plans. If you’re not with them, or doing something one of them tells you to, you’re my shadow for as long as we’re engaged in combat operations on Norbank. Understood?”
Lon nodded. “I understand, Corporal,” he said quietly. He was no longer concerned about showing his … nervousness. Since the ship had arrived in Norbank’s system, most of the men in the platoon had become quiet, almost withdrawn. The familiar banter appeared only rarely and seldom lasted for long.
“A man has to think,” Janno had told Lon. “We’ve all been through this before, more than once. No matter what the job is, there’s always that … chance.” No one openly talked of the possibility of dying, not so close to action.
“We don’t know yet how this contract is going to go,” Girana continued. “It could be hairy as hell, or a beer run. The rebels might fight to the end, or give up as soon as they know there’s a professional army on the ground ready to take them on. We won’t know until it happens. So stick close and we’ll get us through this with as little difficulty as possible.”
I’ll get through it, Lon promised himself. Whatever it takes. All of the concern over his performance was becoming more annoying than reassuring. It’s like they all think I’ll be useless without someone to hold my hand and tell me what to do every step of the way, he thought. Like I’m five years old and this is my first day at school. At first he had welcomed the solicitousness. But it had gotten old in a hurry.
Then Lon chuckled softly. Maybe that was the plan, he thought. Get me so mad that I’d forget to be scared.
6
There were a thousand things to remember. Lon no longer had time for fear or nervousness. On the trek to the hangar, he occupied his mind with the plan for deployment, what was supposed to happen in the first few minutes following touchdown. In his mind he looked over the LZ again, recalling the photographs and the topographical overlays. The shuttles would land six miles northeast of the center of Norbank City, two miles from First River, which bent northeast east of the capital. The landing zone was a rocky clearing at the foot of a string of small hills that extended to the river and grew to the east and northeast. Only one significant creek would be between the mercenary battalion and the rebel lines around the capital, and the creek was shallow enough to ford.
Now that an assault landing was imminent, third and fourth platoons of A Company were quiet, each man alone with his thoughts. Many had the faceplates down on their helmets even before they left the armory after picking up their weapons, shutting themselves off from scrutiny. The noncoms were subdued with their instructions, speaking softly, using few words, showing no emotion. Even Phip had lost his usual ebullience.
One member of Long Snake’s crew stood just inside the hangar for the shuttle that third and fourth platoons would use. The hangar chief counted heads coming through the doorway, watched as the men filed into the shuttle, then confirmed his head count with the shuttle pilots and with Lieutenant Taiters. Only when he was satisfied that no one was unaccounted for did the hangar chief step back through the doorway, seal the airlock, and move to
his control station in a small room with a heavily shielded window that looked into the hangar.
Inside the shuttle, the men strapped in. The hatches were sealed. The lander’s crew chief checked pressurization, then retreated to his post between the troops and the cockpit. Weapons were secured, clipped next to their owners—who also kept a grip on them. Safety harness straps were tightened. Squad leaders and platoon sergeants checked their men before they themselves strapped in. Finally, only Lieutenant Taiters was on his feet.
“Alpha Company will be first in,” he said. “Colonel Flowers and battalion headquarters will be in right on our heels. It’s up to us to secure the LZ. The rest of the battalion will be coming in almost immediately, so time is of the essence. We want to be on the ground and in position before the opposition even knows we’re coming. The other shuttles will be touching down one after another, even as we’re setting up our perimeter. Stay alert, and be ready for anything.” He paused for a second, then finished with an ancient military cliché. “Good luck, and good hunting.”
Lon Nolan took in a long, slow breath, held it for thirty seconds, then let it out just as slowly. There was a strange fluttering in his chest, something between fear and excitement. He looked over to where Corporal Girana sat, and reminded himself to stay right with the squad leader. Girana looked toward Nolan and nodded, as if he could read the cadet’s thoughts. Neither man could see the other’s eyes. The faceplates of their helmets were down, and the plastic was tinted, concealing the faces underneath.
No one said anything about hurrying up and waiting now. The entire battalion had to get into their shuttles before the launch process began. Hangars had to be depressurized; massive outer doors had to be opened before the landers could be ejected.
Lon became aware of a rhythmic thumping noise that seemed to grow in volume, but he needed half a minute to realize that it was the sound of his own heart. He did another breathing exercise to try to slow the rate. When that did not work, he tried humming “The Ballad of Harko Bain” softly, but could not get away from the distraction of his pounding pulse.