by Eric Thomson
“Yes, sir. And I'll be glad to guide you in.”
“Good. My sergeant-major has told me a lot about you when we found out you'd be joining us.”
“Knowing Vanlith, everything you heard was bad, right sir?” Zack grinned.
“Right, Sergeant, which means you'll fit right in.” He smiled.
When Decker saw Ryent's pale eyes shift, he suddenly remembered his manners.
“Sir, I'd like to introduce Captain Avril Ducote, of the trader Demetria. I owe her a lot.”
“Pleased to meet you, Captain.” Ryent shook Avril's hand, appraising her. He liked what he saw. Ducote seemed steady, capable and experienced.
“I suggest we head for the briefing room,” Talyn said once the introductions were over.
“Right, Hera,” Ryent replied, flashing the intelligence officer a quick smile that, to Decker, seemed more than just a greeting between casual friends.
As they walked down the all too familiar passageways, Zack asked Talyn in a whisper, “You and the major old friends, sir?”
“You could say that, Sergeant,” she replied in the same tone. “We've done a few missions together.”
Zack nodded, a knowing smile briefly playing on his lips.
The lift deposited them on the bridge deck, by the ship's briefing room and as the gunner stepped through the door, a deep, vibrant voice stopped him dead in his tracks.
“Well, well, well, if it isn't Zachary T. Decker, Command Sergeant, retired. Who left the airlock open and let you on board a perfectly respectable ship?”
The speaker, a stocky, broad-shouldered noncom in his late forties stood by the conference table, fists on his hips. He wore the starburst insignia of a sergeant major and the gold jump wings of an expert Pathfinder.
“Vanlith, you old bugger,” Decker shot back, grinning broadly. “I see the Corps finally fucked-up and made you respectable.”
Avril Ducote was surprised to see the two men embrace.
“Speaking of fuck-ups,” the weathered sergeant-major said when they let go of each other, “the Corps made a real doozy in your case. How's retirement?”
Zack grimaced.
“Shitty, Gus. Don't take it if they offer. The first thing you do is crawl into a bottle. Then, you get yourself into more trouble than a gaggle of recruits on shore leave. And then you end up on a fucking frigate, wondering how the hell you volunteered to jump into shit with a bunch of certifiably crazy Pathfinders. Civvie life is nuts, man.”
He punched the older man in the arm.
“Gus, I'd like to introduce you to Avril Ducote, the captain of the ship I'm working on. Avril, this is Augustus Vanlith, the only reprobate in the Corps to make sergeant-major after getting busted down to private not once, but twice. He's one hell of a Pathfinder.”
“Captain,” Vanlith shook Avril's hand, “I can only express my admiration at your fortitude. Zack can be one hell of a nasty customer. And I wish you all the happiness you can find in this shitty universe.”
“Thank you,” she replied shyly, wondering how he knew about their budding relationship.
“Sergeant, Captain Ducote,” Major Ryent interrupted with a smile, “I'd like to introduce the rest of my people.”
For Zack Decker, it was old home week, a return to the life he had loved. He either knew all the 251st's senior noncoms or knew people who knew them. The Corps was indeed a small place.
“... and if we can finish with the tearful reunion,” Ryent's command voice called everybody to order, “I suggest we turn to planning the mission. Take your seats please.” He turned to Zack.
“Sergeant Decker, the floor is yours. My battle captain will project aerial views of the target on the vidscreen on request.”
Zack went over to the white screen.
“Okay, Pathfinders, Uncle Zachary will tell you a sweet bedtime story, and when I'm done, you'll want to slice Walker Amali's balls off yourselves.”
*
For the next hour, Decker described the island and Amali's operation in excruciating detail, including his own ordeal. Talyn supplied information she'd obtained through her intelligence sources, but it was essentially Zack's show.
“Thank you, Sergeant,” Ryent nodded when Decker finished his briefing. “It'll be a tough nut to crack, especially since we'll violate the Rules big-time by mounting an unauthorized op on a member planet. Hera, what are our mission parameters?”
“Simple, Kal.” Talyn let her hard eyes roam around the table, meeting the others' square on. “Kill all Quas adults, especially the queen, all pupas and destroy all eggs. In intel words, terminate with extreme prejudice. Not that it'll be difficult, after Sergeant Decker's speech. Once you've done that, destroy the labs, data banks and anything associated with the hive.”
“Dibs on the interrogation room,” Zack interrupted.
Ryent looked at him for a few heartbeats and nodded. Anyone who had suffered a mind probe was entitled to demolish the gear that had raped his mind.
“What about the humans?” The major asked.
“If it shoots or resists, kill it. If it runs and hides, let it be. Ideally, I'd like a few survivors to spread the word that the Fleet has the cojones to violate the Rules when the Coalition goes beyond the pale. And that's why you're going in under your own colors, not as a covert force.”
“Good.” Ryent and the Marines nodded with satisfaction. They disliked fighting under a false flag, even if politics and secrecy made it necessary. “And Amali?”
“Mine again, sir,” Decker interjected. “I promised him I'd see him dead.”
“If we catch him, he's yours, Decker,” Ryent replied.
“If.” Talyn sounded dubious. “He probably has a foolproof escape route only he knows about. And at the first sign of danger, he's gone.”
“Leaving his people on their own,” Zack's voice dripped with acid. “Fucking coward.”
“Any other constraints?” Ryent asked.
“Yes. It'll be a light infantry op, using Warthogs instead of the Typhoons and combat cars, and we can't afford to put Charles Martel in Pacifica orbit. Too obvious. If Captain Ducote agrees, we'll use Demetria to bring you into launch position, and retrieve you after the mission. Her ship is large enough to carry the gunboats, and can slip into orbit without attracting as much attention. Your descent will be in full stealth mode, not only to deceive Pacifica Aerospace Control, but also Amali's private AA artillery.”
“I'll do it,” Avril Ducote said, voice steady. But Zack wasn't deceived. Her pallor had increased, and he could see she was frightened. But gutsy.
“Okay.” Ryent stretched his arms and rolled his shoulders as he stood. “Hera, Mo, Sarn't-Major, Sergeant Decker, Captain Ducote and Sergeant Takahashi, please stay behind. We'll work on the mission plan. The rest of you can start preparations. We'll hold orders in two hours. Sergeant Ikeda, get a full issue of combat gear ready for Sergeant Decker, minus, I believe, a pistol. You seem to own a well-maintained Imperial Armaments specimen, Decker.”
“Aye, sir. Took it off a reiver near Koramshar. My first Fleet Pathfinder op.”
“With the 902nd, right? I heard about that one when I was at the School. An excellent piece of work.”
“Thank you, sir.”
*
Three hours later, Vanlith took Zack down to the locker room to draw his kit. Along the way, Decker breathed in the atmosphere of a warship's Marine barracks and felt the loss again. He belonged here.
Word about him had spread fast, and the Pathfinders preparing their armor and weapons nodded in greeting as he passed. Ikeda waited for them beside an open locker which now bore the name Decker, Z.T.
The armor fit like a glove and Zack reveled in the feel of its protective weight. He was pleased to see that they'd put command sergeant stripes and swords on it.
“Sorry, I couldn't find a crest of the 902nd, Decker.”
“I think I still have a few hidden away. Hang on.” Decker dug into an inner pocket and grinned as his hand came back with sever
al plasticized insignia. He slapped a crest on each sleeve, above the rank stripes.
“A lot better, Zack,” Vanlith nodded. “Why not go the whole hog?” He took the remaining two crests from Decker's fingers and pressed them on his battledress.
“Welcome back to the Pathfinders, Command Sergeant Decker.”
Vanlith reached into the locker and pulled out a fifteen-millimeter carbine. He tossed it at Zack, who caught it and expertly worked the action, performing the approved Marine Corps weapons safety check.
The carbine felt right in his hands, natural. A beautiful piece of machinery lovingly maintained and which would be lovingly used. Soon.
“Lock and load, Zack, because we're going on a bug hunt.”
Eighteen
Demetria, now bearing the name, hull number and transponder of a free trader called the Beryl Zephyr, sliced through Pacifica's night sky, pitching and yawing as Avril Ducote fought the high stratospheric winds. On a planned approach to Eisener City, a minor spaceport in the tropics, the disguised ship would overfly the island group that included Amali's retreat.
Hera Talyn, sitting in the co-pilot's seat, kept watching the excruciatingly sensitive stealth generators they'd installed on the ship's hull. They were essential to the mission since they disguised the fact that the Beryl Zephyr looked exactly like a ship the Amali family and the Sécurité Spéciale desperately wanted.
They also concealed the unusual cargo in its hold: four Warthog assault boats loaded to the gunwales with a squadron of Marine Pathfinders, armed and equipped for a deadly night raid.
Should the incursion go wrong, there was no doubt in anyone's mind that an official inquiry by the Adjudicating Authority would lead to a severe political crisis and heavy pressure by the Senate to disband the 251st and its sister squadrons. But every mission lately carried the same risk. Special operations commandos didn't exist for simple strolls in the park. Major Ryent and his troopers knew they were deniable and expendable. If they were caught, the Grand Admiral would disavow their actions and throw them to the wolves. The same went for one Commander Hera Talyn, of Naval Intelligence.
These thoughts were far from Talyn's mind as she double checked the ship's planetary positioning system and flicked on the intraship radio.
“Raider-Niner, this is Mother Two, launch in five minutes. Opening doors.”
Down in the cavernous cargo hold, the four sleek gunboats waited in silence. Their black hulls seemed to absorb what little light the red emergency lamps provided.
Within, the four assault troops of the 251st sat patiently in well-ordered rows, the troopers joking in low tones as if their voices could give them away. This would be, for most of them, just another in a long string of combat jumps.
Zack Decker was dressed like the others in black scout armor and wore the standard utility belt loaded with grenades, spare magazines for his carbine, detcord, and a fighting knife. He sat half way down the outboard bench, wedged between a pair of troopers. Ryent had assigned him to Raptor Three. It would be the first to jump and the first to land. Its mission was to destroy the hive.
Just like everyone else in the craft, Decker was feeling the old pre-jump jitters turn his stomach into a seething nest of angry hornets. He had hundreds of jumps under his belt, but he still felt anxious before each one, which was just as well. When fear vanished, mistakes happened. At an altitude of five thousand meters, those mistakes were often fatal.
“Raider-Niner, this is Mother Two, launch minus sixty. Counting down. Have a good one, Pathfinder.”
“Raider Team thanks you, Mother,” Ryent’s ironic voice crackled over the general net, “and promises to come home for supper. Out to you. Raptor Leader, stand by.”
At launch minus thirty, the Warthog pilots started their gunboats' thrusters for the short burst that would free them from the trader's hold. At the word 'go', Raptor Three sprang through Demetria's rear cargo doors, quickly followed by Raptors One, Two and Four.
The gunboat pilots, inertial guidance systems pointing their shuttles at the target, made final course adjustments, hoping they were still within the ship's stealth field, and then turned all systems off.
“Okay, Avril,” Talyn grinned at Ducote, looking eerie in the green glow of the instrument panel, “prepare to make the thrusters look like goners.”
“Ready.” If Ducote was nervous, she gave no sign. Talyn admired her calm, a rare thing in an untrained civilian thrust into a military operation.
“Hit it.” Almost at once, the ship began to buckle as the atmospheric thrusters malfunctioned.
“Eisener control, this is the Beryl Zephyr.” Talyn's voice sounded suitably fearful. “We have a malfunction in the atmospheric thrusters. Switching to sublight drive and aborting descent. Request parking orbit so we can fix the problem before trying again.”
“Eisener control here,” a bored voice replied. “Roger your last. Go to two-seven-four mark three-five. Contact orbital control once you reach two-hundred thousand.” The controller's tone seemed to suggest he expected this sort of incident with free traders.
Ducote punched in the course and flicked on Demetria's sublight drives. Immediately, the two women were pushed back into their seats by the increase in thrust. The ion stream from the sublight drive wiped out any trail the Warthogs might have left.
“Roger, Eisener control, we'll try again later. Beryl Zephyr out.”
“So far, so good,” Talyn commented through clenched teeth.
*
Invisible gliders, the gunboats slipped through the clouds on a shallow descent, their sharp beaks aimed at Amali's island. No light reflected off their black skins, no sensor wave bounced back to betray them. At best, with the most sophisticated gear, an experienced tech would mistake them for a flock of birds or sensor ghosts.
The Pathfinders, silent and contemplative now that they'd left the safety of the ship, dealt with the coming battle in their own way. In the semi-darkness of the jump bay, the armored Marines looked like eerie cousins to the semi-sentient insects they were about to destroy. No sound but the wind whistling along the fuselage disturbed their peace.
Some prayed to the God or gods of their childhood, some thought of the enemy below and drowned their fears in a rising tide of bloodlust, while others meditated, focusing on inner harmony. Veterans all, the Pathfinders had learned to channel their fears away long ago.
Two bright red lamps switched on: the signal for ten minutes to jump. In Raptor Three, the jumpmaster rose and stood below the lights. He extended his arms in front of him, hands flat and palms facing upwards. Slowly, he raised them.
“Stand up.”
The Pathfinders unbuckled their seatbelts and stood, facing the rear of the shuttle. Automatically, the seats folded back into the bulkheads, freeing up space for the bulky troopers. The jumpmaster hit his chest with both fists, just below the shoulders, where the parachute straps joined the harness.
“Check your equipment.”
In pairs, the Pathfinders checked their altimeters, manual release handles, parachute covers and harness buckles. The 'chute taken care of, they made sure their small packs were strapped on, their rifles, carbines, rocket launchers and machine guns were secured against their chests, but ready to use with a single tug, and their various pouches and pockets sealed, so nothing fell out five kilometers above the ocean.
The jumpmaster raised his hands to the sides of his head, palms facing the troopers.
“Sound off for equipment check.”
From back to front, each Marine slapped the shoulder of the trooper ahead of him and yelled “Okay.”
When the signal reached the jumpers at the head of the four files, they gave the jumpmaster a thumbs-up signal. Any Marine, who wasn't okay, would have stepped out of line and left the stick.
The jumpmaster then placed his right hand on his helmet visor, at the level of his mouth
“Go to internal.”
With a flick of the hand, the troopers buttoned up their sui
ts and began breathing the stale, canned air that would keep them alive until they reached the lower altitudes.
The JM raised his hands to his ears again.
“Sound off for breathing check.”
Again, the signal was passed from front to back. Again, no one stepped out of line with a problem.
The JM turned to the intercom. “We're ready back here.”
“Okay,” the pilot replied. “Hang on. I'm dropping the ramp now.”
“Secure for ramp opening.”
The Pathfinders grabbed straps dangling from the upper bulkhead while the ship's aft bulkhead opened downwards and turned into a narrow ramp reaching out over the abyss. The jump bay's air pressure dropped, tugging at the standing Marines.
Wind howled through the small craft, making speech, even thought, impossible. The Pathfinders stared at the black opening as if hypnotized. Those who weren't absorbed by the daunting task of keeping their instinctual fears away thanked the gods of war for a cloudy sky. They would be less visible to ground watchers, and therefore less vulnerable to ground fire.
The JM made a broad chopping gesture with his right arm.
“Stand by!”
The four files shuffled forward until the lead troopers were level with the edge of the opening. Above the red jump lights, a glowing chronometer counted down the remaining seconds. When the digital readout reached zero, the lights changed to green, a screeching siren filled the bay, and the JM made a sweeping motion with his arm, releasing the Pathfinders into the night sky.
Almost like a single mass, the thirty-three troopers and one retired noncom jogged to the edge of the ramp and flung themselves into the void, arms and legs outstretched. Within seconds, the bay was empty. A final glance back and the jumpmaster let go of his strap, joining the black swans swooping down in Pacifica’s tropical sky.
*
Decker and the one-hundred and twenty-five Pathfinders flew through the night air for a long time, guided only by their helmets' targeting computers, using their bodies as wings and rudders. The sky around them and the ocean below were both of the same unrelieved black. Deep space had more orientation markers. If it weren't for the tug of gravity, and the rush of wind, they could have been floating in a dark limbo where there was no up or down.