The War for Profit Series Omnibus (28 page)

As he approached his office, Galen noticed a corporate-suited man waiting on the sidewalk outside the commander’s entrance door. Not too tall, sloped shoulders, a skinny neck, the pads of his expensive jacket a necessity to make him look normal. An expensive hair treatment, shocking white spiked straight up about two centimeters, a flattop held in place with styling spray.

The waiting man spoke, “Hello, Sergeant Major.”

“Who the hell are you?”

“I’m the liaison from EugeneX.”

“Good for you.” Galen stopped and stood right in front of the man. He didn’t want him in the office and decided to talk outside. “You have a name?”

“Pedimore, John D.” He extended his hand.

Galen ignored the hand and folded his arms. “Okay. After we secure the area, and after the construction company puts in a class ‘C’ spaceport, and after the training and troop housing facilities are built, we’ll have something to talk about. That won’t be for another three months.”

“But I was sent to accompany you now.”

“Well there’s nothing in my unit contract about it. It clearly states that liaison starts after construction reaches the stage of completion I just described.”

Pedimore frowned and looked down. “What am I supposed to do until then?”

Galen shrugged. “I don’t care, as long as it doesn’t cost me money or interfere with my unit’s operations or missions.”

“I see. Then what would you suggest?”

Galen had a very vulgar, insulting suggestion for Pedimore on the tip of his tongue, but decided to use tact. “You can stay in our warrior hotel at Visitor discount rates, and you can coordinate with our public affairs office, they can give you official information for your reports back to your boss. But don’t abuse the privilege; don’t mistake my kindness for weakness.”

“Very well.” Pedimore turned and walked away.

Galen’s instinct made him want to put his boot square in Pedimore’s backside, incensed that the little geek had turned his back and walked away without being dismissed. But he knew civilians were like that, undisciplined little punks. Instead, Galen counted to ten inside his head and then entered his office.

He sat at his desk and turned on his flat screen and read a message from his mother. “I’m so proud of you, and I hope to see you soon. There is always a place in my heart and a room in my house for you. I’m looking forward to the day you can settle down and really enjoy the best things life has to offer.”

Galen stared at the message for a few minutes and then sent his reply, a reply that he knew would take a week at least to reach its destination. “I have extended my enlistment for an additional sixteen months. I can’t disclose details at this time, but rest assured I won’t be in any real danger. If I don’t send another message before then, Happy Birthday.”

With that, Galen stretched out on the left-side couch and took a nap.

***

Galen woke with only a few minutes to spare. He pulled his boots on, checked his personal communicator for messages, found none and then left his office. Entering the marshalling yard through the walk-through gate he saw that most of the vehicles were gone. The recon troop was moving toward the tarmac gate, and the mechanized infantry battalion’s vehicles bristled with troops standing on them, climbing around securing gear. Hundreds of troops also milled around the narrow spaces between the vehicles, awaiting the order to mount up.

As he neared the head of the far left column of IFVs, Galen heard Master Sergeant Sevin’s voice. “Hey Smaj!”

Galen saw him and walked over to where he stood in front of his command vehicle. “So Sevin, what’s up?”

“I just want to thank you for giving me command of the mechanized battalion.”

“Well, somebody has to do it.” Galen noticed that the last vehicle of the scout troop was nearing the edge of the tarmac. “I’ll let you get back to work.”

“First in, last out. That’s the way to do it!” Master Sergeant Sevin climbed into the commander’s hatch of his IFV and put on his commo helmet. Soon, all the other troops mounted their vehicles as well.

Galen checked his wrist chronometer and stepped off quickly and took up a light jog until he reached the control tower. He rode the lift to the top and entered the control room. Tad and Karen stood looking out the floor to ceiling windows at the vehicles and drop boats. A technician and a sergeant from the movement control team sat at the desk, studying the flat screen. Chief Polar stood behind them, making notes on the electronic clipboard.

“Hey Tad,” said Galen.

Karen and Tad turned to face him. Tad jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the window. “Not much longer.”

“Right. You two can head on out.”

Polar turned toward Galen. “Me too. I can monitor the manifest from my drop boat.”

“All right.” Galen peered out of the control tower windows and saw the long line of drop boats along the tarmac, canted an eighth of a turn, or eight hundred mils, their assault ramps lowered to make it possible for the vehicles to drive on and tie down inside. He heard the door of the control room close and looked back. Polar, Tad and Karen were gone. The immenseness of the unit was impressive. To transport the unit for this contract required seventy eight drop boats in all, each nearly a hundred and twenty meters long. They made a line that began at the gate of the marshalling yard and faded into the distance, the furthest drop boat barely perceptible as a spec. The drop boats, their retractable wings showing silver at the joints, the area not exposed to supersonic flight, the rest of their exteriors burnished to a dull grey with long black streaks caused by numerous high-velocity atmospheric re-entries on dozens of worlds. The tail sections, the high rudders, the twin engines mounted either side right at the back of the fuselage, the tail flaps protruding from the engine nacelles.

Galen took the lift down and stepped out of the base of the tower and turned left and walked a hundred meters to reach the command drop ship. He entered through the cargo ramp, gave the loadmaster a thumbs up and watched as the cargo ramp lifted to close against the overhead, made his way around the skid-loaded command tank, opened the door to his cabin to peek inside, saw that his gear was secure, closed the cabin door and climbed the ladder up to the second level and moved down the gangway that ran across the length of the jump engine to the cockpit. He entered and took the seat behind the pilot and fastened his seat belt. Karen was already in the seat to his right.

“Ready, Smaj?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

Karen said, “I heard you were a sleeper.”

“I am.” Galen patted the left breast pocket of his combat coveralls. “I got injectors.”

The pilot said, “I’ve heard about sleepers, but I never met one before. What’s it like?”

The loadmaster entered and sat in the co-pilot seat and fastened his seat belt. “All secure down there.”

Galen spoke. “You don’t want to know.”

The loadmaster-turned-co-pilot said, “Don’t want to know what?”

Karen said, “What it’s like to be a sleeper.”

“Oh,” said the co-pilot. “I’ve heard of that. Some sort of jump space syndrome where you spend an eternity in complete darkness and wake up crazy.”

“Not quite crazy,” said Galen. “I’ve done it once, that’s enough. I knock myself out with an auto-injector for the jump so it doesn’t affect me.”

The pilot looked over his shoulder at Galen, peered into his face and studied his eyes.

Galen said, “It was five years ago.”

Karen said, “This will be my first jump. Is there a test or something to see if I’m a sleeper?”

Galen looked at her, studied her eyes. “No. Now look directly into my eyes and believe what I tell you. This is real. If you find yourself stuck in an eternity of darkness, remember this. It will end. You will come back. Do not forget, this is real.”

The pilot called the tower and got clearance to taxi to the end of the tarmac, moving slowly past the long line of drop boats. At the end of the tarmac he turned the ship and took his position at the end of a longer runway and waited. After the tower gave him clearance, he trundled down the runway, slow at first, but picked up immense speed, just barely below the speed of sound. When the landing gear left the ground he retracted it, then angled the nose of the dropship straight up and slammed the throttle to full. The dropship pushed with three Gs of force, the wings retracting incrementally after the dropship pushed through one sound barrier after another. Finally the dropship tore free of the atmosphere and continued to accelerate as it left he gravity well of Mandarin. The pilot then let the dropship coast as he extended the ionic propulsion nacelles from the belly of the craft, tilted it so that the jump point would be directly above, and then set the propulsion nacelles to give a thrust of one G.

The pilot then said, “Feel free to move about the cabin. We’ll reach the turnaround point in forty six minutes, and then I’ll flip the ship around and decelerate at one G to the jump point. Any questions?”

Galen said, “Just give us a buzz before the zero-G of the turnaround so we can hold on to something.”

“Not a problem,” said the pilot.

Galen undid his seatbelt and said, “Hey, where’s my tank crew?”

The pilot said, “They stay in their cabin, usually.” He checked a status screen. “They’re in there now.”

Galen went back down to the cabin area and knocked on the door directly across the hall from his. “Hello?”

The door opened. Corporal Slaughter, the short but stocky command tank gunner said, “Problem, Smaj?”

“I just want to see how you guys are doing.”

“Come on in.”

Galen entered and sat on Park’s bunk. Trooper Parks could have been Slaughter’s twin, but with brown hair instead of black. He sat at the desk, paused his video game and swiveled the chair to face Galen.

“So, you guys have been on a few contracts before. This is how you handle space travel?”

“Yes, Sergeant Major,” Trooper Parks said.

“And you’ve been in this job for three years, and Corporal Slaughter has been at it for four years, correct?”

Parks said, “Yes, Sergeant Major.”

“Well, keep up the good work.” Galen stood. “One more thing…”

Slaughter said, “What’s that?”

“Have you thought about doing something else? After this contract, when we get back to Mandarin, I mean.”

Parks said, “Not really. I could do a whole twenty years of this. It’s a sweet job.”

Galen said, “You know, there’re three more seats in the cockpit. You can ride up there if you want.”

Slaughter shrugged. “I used to, but this is okay.”

“All right. Enjoy the ride.” Galen went to his cabin a stretched out on his bunk. He heard Karen’s door open and then close, and heard her footfalls as she paced in her own cabin. Galen got up and knocked on her door.

After a moment she opened the door. “Hello, Smaj.”

“Hello yourself. Is something bothering you?”

“I’m just worried about the jump.” She stepped closer to Galen.

He took a half step back. “Let’s go talk it over with the pilots; they can explain the whole process. I’d like to hear about it from an expert myself, I hardly understand it.”

“Okay.”

She followed him to the cockpit and took the seat behind the co-pilot. Galen sat behind the pilot and said, “Hey, how does this jump drive work?”

The co-pilot swiveled his chair to face Galen. “Well, it’s not really a drive so much as a generator.”

Karen said, “Well I’m more interested in the jump travel concept more than the engine or whatever it is.”

The co-pilot thought for a moment. “It’s like a fold in space. We generate a direct connection with another point, from a know point here. Then we pass through, ceasing to exist here as we pass through the plane of the connection, and beginning to exist on the other side of that plane, at the destination.”

Galen scratched his head. “So how do we know where we’ll be?”

The co-pilot said, “The jump points have to be set up ahead of time, through trial and error. A ship is sent through from a known point, and then after it determines its position it comes back and reports where it was. Usually. Sometimes the jumpship doesn’t come back.”

“Why is that?”

“There could be something blocking it. The destination might be inside an object, or there might be too much matter in the space of the destination. Doesn’t take much. Something the size of my fist could screw up the jump point exploration by shifting the ship’s position relative to the jump point just enough, when it comes back it goes to a point different from where it started from. Another problem, the exploring ship could end up so far away it can’t determine its position so it just keeps on trying to figure it out and won’t return until it does.”

Karen said, “Sounds dangerous.”

“When they try to establish jump points, they don’t send crews. The exploratory jumpships are automated. But it’s a process, establishing jump points. There is no way to predict how they’ll turn out, but they do always connect the same two points, once they’re established, provided the subsequent jumpships follow the exact same angle and point of entry.”