The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (22 page)

There were no surprises expected. All of the equipment had been carefully checked several times before it had been cleared for use in the maneuvers, but there was always the chance of failure, so the check was mandatory. So far, though, Mr. Murphy wasn’t making any appearances, and the fifty occupants of the first drop shuttle all cleared their gear and the all clear was given.

Greene grunted in satisfaction and stepped up to the front of the troop deck, slapping his own rifle into the slot built to receive it, and then spun around and backed into the cradle while keying the lock with one hand. The hydraulic system locked the braces down over his suit, and he looked out through his clear helm at the rest of the men who were similarly suspended in their suits.

“By the numbers, people. Nothing fancy,” he said grimly. “I don’t want any fuckups. Just remember, it’s just another training run…Don’t get nervous, remember your training, and you won’t have me kicking your ass all the way back to the ship.”

Dry chuckles were heard over the radio network, some of the soldiers recognizing the humor in the sarge’s words, though they also knew the truth of them as well.

Greene just half smiled, his lips curling up into an almost sneer, and signaled over the command band, “Alpha Group, ready to drop, Major.”

“Thank you, Sergeant,” Major Brinks said as he checked off the first shuttle’s complement from his list and keyed the
command band closed. He was standing in the bay of the fourth shuttle, which had undergone some rapid and annoyingly slapdash retrofitting to accommodate something that he wasn’t even certain he wanted on the mission. “Lieutenant, if you can’t get that thing locked down safely, it is not leaving this ship.”

“I’m almost ready, Major,” Lieutenant Crowley grunted from where he was pulling a two-ton test strap down over the exoskeletal tactical armor. “It’ll hold, sir!”

Brinks twisted his lips, but glanced over to where Chief Corrin was examining the tie-downs and threw her a questioning look.

The chief looked at the young lieutenant, then back at the major, and nodded discreetly.

“All right, Lieutenant,” Brinks said reluctantly, “you’d better get yourself ready to drop. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”

“Yes, sir!” The lieutenant saluted quickly, then keyed open the back of his currently immobile armor.

The back slip at the top, where the neck of the humanoid-shaped armor was located, opened up quietly, hissing pneumatics until it reached the point where Crowley could grab ahold of the twin handles inside and swing himself down and into the armor.

A moment later, the suit hissed shut again, and Crowley’s voice came over the command band. “Locked in, sir. I’m ready.”

Brinks nodded briefly, pushing himself off the perch he had observed from, and floated down to the deck of the shuttle. “See that you are, Lieutenant.”

Brinks paused as Corrin passed him, keying over to a private channel. “That thing isn’t going to come loose and kill half my team when we bounce off the atmosphere, is it?”

“It’ll hold, Major. You have my word,” the chief petty officer told him then.

Brinks nodded. “Good enough, Chief.”

Then he keyed over to the unit-wide command band. “All shuttles, make final preparations for deployment.”

PRIMINAE COLONY, THEORA DEICE
Orbital Station

▸LORA BREEM WATCHED as the screen showed the liftoff of the second wave of heavy-lifter evacuation starships. There were about three-quarters of a million people on those ships, packed into the hulls with little regard for the comfort of the people involved. All that mattered in the emergency evacuation plans was that they got as many off the planet as possible.

“There they go, Commander,” Kav said in a worried voice.

“It’s going to be tough for them,” Breem said. “All of them.”

A lot tougher than for the staff of the orbital station. All they had to do was survive the nearly two weeks that they would be spending in close quarters. It was better, after all, than what those left behind were going to get. Better than a lot of people were going to get, in fact.

She turned to the tactical projection that showed the bow wave of the incoming Drasin ships as they breached the system’s outer orbitals and began their approach. The first wave of evacuees was already pulling hard in the opposite direction, scrambling to climb up and out of the gravity well of the system’s primary.

She settled into her command chair again, tapping out a command on her interface. “Laser command to my station.”

“Yes, Commander. Orbitals are being directed to your station.”

The powerful orbital laser arrays were the first defenses that had been created when the threat of the Drasin had been realized so many months earlier, each floating pod stashing twelve of the most powerful laser crystals in the colonies. From the reports available to her, Lora expected that the nine pods under the control of her station should be roughly equivalent in firepower to three of the heavy warships like the
Cerekus
.

They couldn’t, however, chase enemy ships or maneuver to dodge incoming fire, so Lora didn’t think she’d get more than one unopposed shot, and after that, it was a matter of luck and fate and the hand of the creator.

“Activating arrays,” she said, flipping the safeties up and open one by one, bringing the powerful energy sources on each array to life.

Around them, the fire-control sections of the orbital command center came to life, lighting up with telltales.

“Hold on active sensors,” Commander Breem ordered, leaving one safety still on. “Transfer targeting coordinates from the
Heralc
.”

“Yes, Commander,” came the response from the signals officer as everyone bent to their task.

“Here we go,” Lora said, whispering the words softly as she watched the clean computer-generated graphics project in front of her, and for a brief second, she was almost able to forget that it wasn’t just another simulation.

Almost.

PLANET RANQUIL

▸“HERE THEY COME, Colonel.”

Colonel Reed nodded to the man who had spoken, but turned to where Commander Jehan, Admiral Tanner, and Captain Weston were standing on the overlook around two miles from the LZ. He took just a moment to spot the lights that were moving against the backdrop of stars, then pointed them out to the other three men.

“There. See them?” he asked as the lights of the ships involved in the exercises began to streak against the sky, flames blazing behind them as they began atmospheric braking maneuvers.

“Yes.” Nero was the only one to speak right away, his eyes focused on the incoming ships.

“They’re coming in faster than we’d do for any other situation,” Reed said for the benefit of the admiral and commander, “with their CM systems deactivated.”

“Why?” Admiral Tanner asked, frowning.

“Because counter-mass fields send up a flare that’s visible to a half-blind signals tech,” Reed replied. “With stealth technology, if they’re lucky, the first hint that they’re in the atmosphere is the flames from the friction heat.”

As Reed spoke, a distant rumble began to reach their ears, and he smiled thinly. “And by that time, it’s probably too late.”

The heavy shuttle body vibrated under him as 1st Lt. Aaron Bixx fought the controls with one hand and adjusted the flex of the atmospheric control surfaces with the other. The wings of the big shuttle flexed in response to his demands, twisting the vehicle as they bit into the thickening air around them, and he put her nose down.

“We’re through the breach point!” he yelled over the roar that was filling the cockpit even through all the insulation built around him. “Nose down! Stand ready on the CM!”

His copilot nodded tensely, her face white with tension as she handled the minutia of the approach, keeping Bixx free to worry about the key details.

Like not plowing into the ground at Mach 5.

“Mutherfucking son of a…” Bixx cursed as his forward view cleared for a brief moment and he saw the twin reactors of an Archangel only meters away from his nose, pacing the shuttle uncomfortably close for any pilot on a rough entry.

His string of curses kept up, and his copilot winced because she knew that they were all getting recorded in the flight log, and they’d both have to explain it later. She tried to ignore both him and the occasional glimpses of the fighter craft just outside, trusting them both to do their job as she did hers.