Staff officers are notoriously overoptimistic in mission briefings, but I can’t help feeling just a little flare of hope that this mission won’t be quite the epic body-bag filler it had appeared to be at first. If our intel is good, and we can sew the system shut while we’re hammering the garrison, there’s even a chance Major Gould’s optimism is justified.
“Once we transition in, the minelayer and a frigate escort are going to peel off and make straight for the enemy’s transition zones. Once there, they’ll salt the place with nuclear mines, and Sirius A will be ‘No Exit/No Entry’ for a while. The bulk of CTF Seventy-Two is going to continue to Sirius Ad, where we are going to engage and destroy the ships in orbit. After that, we hit the garrison from above, land the troops, and mop up whatever the Shrikes have left for us.”
“And the other team is just going to lie down and take it,” I say to Macfee.
“Soon as they figure out what’s happening, they’ll shove a whole fucking division through the chute to take the place back,” he replies. “Hell, we would.”
“Be nice to pull one over on them for a change, though,” I say. “I’m getting sick of this chickenshit hit-and-run business.”
“Mission briefings will commence soon,” Major Gould says. “We’re five days out from the chute to Sirius A, and ordnance will start flying as soon as we’re out of Alcubierre, so use the time wisely. Operation Hammerfall commences in one hundred and twenty hours. Get your gear ready for business, and check your PDPs for briefing schedules. Dismissed.”
We spend the time to Alcubierre transition with maintenance, training, and the kind of recreational pursuits common among those about to go into battle. During the days, we’re at the firing range, in the shipboard gyms, or in our unit briefing rooms. In the evenings, we’re in the mess hall, the NCO club, and the makeshift gambling parlor some of the grease monkeys have set up clandestinely in a quiet corner of the storage hangar.
Joining a new unit means being the new guy all over again, and having to earn everyone’s respect once more. I only have a few days to get to know the troops that will soon rely on me in battle. I suppose some people would keep their distance, knowing that five days aren’t enough to really bond with anyone, and that some of them most likely won’t come back from that mission anyway. I don’t keep to myself because I want to know as much as I can about people whose hide I may have to save, or who may have to save mine. We’re not motivated by money, and only the most naive or optimistic among us are convinced we’re on the winning side, sandwiched as we are between the Lankies and the Sino-Russians.
I don’t believe the patriotic agitprop anymore—if I ever did—and I’m disgusted at the stupidity and shortsighted aggression on both sides, wasting lives and material by squabbling over whatever the Lankies haven’t taken away from us yet. I don’t think we’re any better than the SRA. Our motives aren’t any more noble than theirs, and our methods are the same. At the rate things are going, we have a few more years, a decade at the most, before all our colonies are swallowed by the Lankies, and we have nothing better to do with that borrowed time than to kill each other, like two spoiled kids fighting over how to divide their room while the house is burning down around them.
Still, I drink and joke around with my new comrades, and I know that when the time comes, I will suit up with them, and drop into battle alongside them. I will do so terrified, but on my own free will, and maybe even with a measure of gladness.
CHAPTER 9
“Combat stations, combat stations. All hands, combat stations. This is not a drill. I repeat…”
I’m already suited up and fully armed, and the announcement holds no added urgency to me, or to the rest of the regiment lined up on the hangar deck. We have been gearing up for our drop for the last two hours, and we’re ready for combat. In front of us, flight deck techs swarm all over the drop ships lined up to ferry us into battle, removing safety caps from ordnance fuses and autocannon muzzles. I check my kit for the thirtieth time—armor integrity, weapon status, comms gear function, oxygen levels, filter condition.
The flight deck is a cavernous hall that takes up the entire bottom half of the ship almost from bow to stern, and it’s packed end to end with drop ships and troops. Each drop ship can ferry a platoon, and we’re dropping with a full regiment today. Twenty-four drop ships are running up their engines on the other side of the flight deck, the most I’ve ever seen parked wingtip to wingtip in one spot. As scary as it is to be part of an operation that actually requires the deployment of this much brute force, it’s also sort of exhilarating. I’m a cog in a machine, but on days like this, I’m reminded just how large and powerful a machine it is.
“First Platoon, on your feet!”
The platoon sergeant, SFC Ferguson, walks down the line of battle-ready SI troopers, patting the polymer shell of his M-66 rifle for emphasis.