The Heart of Matter: Odyssey One (69 page)

She still
did
the drops, mind you. She just kept barf bags beside her seat for when it was over.

Glad I won’t be needing them on this run
, she thought as she leveled the shuttle out and brought it around for the final run.

The entire body of the craft flexed to maximize maneuvering efficiency as she came around, arming the ground-to-surface missiles as she did. The HUD flashed red, alerting her that she was armed and dangerous just in case she had somehow managed to be a complete imbecile and activate the triple-protected weapons by accident, and she haloed the target.

A final flick of her thumb cleared the firing stud on the control stick, and the bird was hot as hell and about to unleash some on the ground below.

“Bird is hot,” she said calmly, leveling the shuttle as she dipped the nose down and picked up speed. “Weapons free.”

There was silence from around her; she already had clearance to fire, so the announcement was more for the records and a courtesy to the major sitting just behind her. Her thumb fell on the stud, and the shuttle rocked slightly as the heavy warheads fell free.

“Shuttle One, bruisers clear.”

The “bruisers” in question, a quartet of high-yield, conventional air-to-surface missiles dropped clear of the shuttle before their CM and reactors powered up. They roared away at a relatively sedate acceleration, entering terminal guidance almost instantly due to the proximity of their launch point. When terminal guidance went active, both the CM and reactors lit off, causing each to resemble nothing more than beam weapons as they lanced straight into their target at speeds
normally all but impossible in Einsteinian space, let alone within the atmosphere of a planet.

They slammed into the hole, the CM fields dropping a split second before impact, and the combined detonation and impact could be felt for well over a hundred kilometers without sensing equipment. The ground erupted upward, a volcano of dirt and rock reaching for the sky as the shuttle slowed to an easy orbit of the ground zero.

“Target engaged, Major. Please advise.”

“Take us down as soon as the dirt finishes falling from the sky, Lieutenant,” Brinks said from behind her. “We need to drop a team to confirm we got them all.”

“Roger that. Shuttle One, mission stance changed,” she replied. “We’re playing air cav now. Jamie, get the troops ready to jump. I’ll make a low and slow pass.”

“Roger, Alex,” M.Sgt. James Queen replied, getting the attention of the grunts in the back. “Time to earn your pay, boys!”

“Huah, Master Sergeant!” they called back automatically, popping their restraints as they got ready to disembark.

Major Brinks stepped back, leaning into the bulkhead as the shuttle banked into the approach turn. “We just hammered this LZ, boys, so things should be peaceful for you, but best not to assume anything. Get down, dig in, and get the seismo sensors deployed. We need to be sure that we nailed all these bastards. Got me?”

“Got you, sir!”

“Yellow light! Green in thirty seconds!” the master sergeant called, acting as the shuttle’s jumpmaster.

“Watch your assets, boys. Don’t make me come back with local militia,” Brinks growled. “We haven’t gotten them trained to shoot straight yet.”

“Jump in ten!” the master sergeant called, counting down as the men readied to jump.

At just under fifty meters, Alexandra leveled out, sweeping the shuttle into a sidelong glide at just under forty knots when the lights in the belly of the bird shifted to green and the master sergeant ordered the jump.

The armored troopers cast from the open belly of the bird, jumping in pairs, as that was the maximum width they could safely cast from the shuttle. Two at a time, they dropped, landing with powerful flexing of their armored legs and immediately setting about to securing the area against possible attack.

From the shuttle, Brinks and the master sergeant watched the last of them away before they signaled to Lieutenant Paulson that the men were clear.

“Next stop, Lieutenant,” Brinks called.

“Aye, sir. Strap in. We’ve got a distance to cover, sir.”

RANQUIL, BRAVO AO

▸LT. SEAN BERMONT glared about him as he and his team looked over the mess they’d just been dropped off beside.

“This one’s gonna be trouble,” he announced, shaking his head.

“That’s about the single-most useless thing I’ve ever heard come out of your mouth, Lieutenant,” one of his men responded. “And I’ve heard you talk about what you get up to on leave.”

Several others snickered, but Bermont really wasn’t listening. The Drasin strike had really nailed a lucky placement in this situation, at least for the Drasin. For Bermont, his team, and the two squads of local militia that had arrived to clean them out, things were not looking so good.

The ballistic inbound, whatever the hell those things were, had come down on the outskirts of Mons Systema. Whether this was intentional or not, Bermont figured he wasn’t the person to say, but the net result was that, in addition to burrowing deep into the ground, the damn thing had literally brought several buildings down and effectively buried itself in the debris.

Bermont shook his head, waving to his men. “Get those seismo sensors placed, we need to see what’s going on under that mess.”

“Yes, sir.”

While his men were doing that, Bermont stepped over to where the militia groups were and zeroed in on the man in charge.

“Have you got anything that’ll get us through that?”

The coranth shook his head. “Not here, no. I’ve put in a call to System Command, but I’m not certain how long it will take to get crews out here to dig through that.”

“Damn.” Bermont hissed. “Those things are probably already starting to expand their numbers under there.”

“I am aware, yes,” the man said, sounding frustrated and more than a little frightened.

Bermont was generally part of strike teams and hadn’t spent much time dealing with militias in the past, but he wasn’t dense enough to miss the emotion, and he was fully aware it had to be stepped on before it spread. He put a hand on the man’s shoulder and leaned in, making sure that he was speaking over the suit’s localized systems and not the unit-wide frequencies.

“Listen, pal, I know this looks bad, and you know it looks bad, but if you start looking like you’re expecting to be slaughtered any second now, then the men are going to freak out,” he said earnestly. “This would be a bad thing, particularly since they’re carrying some
very
scary weapons, right?”

The coranth nodded, his eyes widening.

“So, you and me, we’re going to stand around and bitch about the brass and generally look bored as hell while still keeping a tight watch,” Bermont said, his tone deathly serious.
“Because the last thing we need is a nervous Nellie opening fire with portable weapons of mass destruction. Deal?”

The man looked confused. “Uh…yes. But one question?”

Bermont nodded. “Sure.”

“Nervous Nellie?”

Bermont laughed cheerfully, loud enough that everyone around could hear him, and while he kept one eye on the seismo readings as they started to come in, he explained the meaning of the expression to the commander of the militia teams.

MONS SYSTEMA COMMAND CENTER

▸IN THE SYSTEM command center, Nero was growing more frustrated as things progressed. Where the news was good, it was very good, but where it was bad, it more than filled his quotient of headaches for the next century.

“No, listen to me,” he growled over a commlink to one of the men in charge of city maintenance. “You will find me a team that can move that debris, or I will come down there myself and find someone who
can
!”

The man on the other side instantly started to protest. “You’re talking about demolishing a sector of Mons Systema without permits!”

“That sector has already
been
demolished, you insufferable…” Nero shouted, then fought for control. “The area must be cleared. If it is not, the Drasin in the area will be able to replicate themselves beyond our ability to control the situation.”

“You cannot be serious,” the man blurted. “I am not taking my construction teams into a war zone!”

“If you do not, then this whole
world
becomes a war zone!” Nero began, only to stare in shock as the signal went dead.

He punched in a query and stared a little longer as the response came back.

“That little imbecile disconnected the comm,” he said with wonder in his tone. Nero left the command pit and walked to where Tanner was directing orbital defenses.

“Rael, we have an issue.”

“Can you handle it?” Rael Tanner asked, looking tired and more than a little ragged. Nero knew the smaller man hadn’t left the command center since the initial reports came through over a day earlier, and he looked it. “I think we have a new cipher sequence that should permit our orbital systems to discriminate incoming Drasin from other debris and increase our detection threshold significantly—we’re running tests now.”

Nero started to reply but a young woman strode up beside him, looking purposeful.

“Orders cut from Central, Commander,” the young ithan said, handing him a data chip.

Nero frowned, but slid the chip into his portable relay system. His eyes got very wide before he glanced back at the ithan. “This came from Central?”

“Yes, Commander.” She nodded. “Direct from the Council’s priority line—triple-checked. The orders are authentic.”

“Thank you, Ithan.” He turned to Rael. “Actually, I believe that I can handle this situation without you or the Council’s intervention.”

“Excellent, Nero,” Tanner replied, looking distracted as he focused on the code gliding past his screens.

Nero permitted himself a dark and predatory smile as he stepped back down into his domain and immediately summoned over the coranth of the deck. “Tera.”

“Yes, Commander?” the slim woman asked as she stepped over.

“Take over the defense integration command,” he ordered. “I have business to deal with.”

“Sir?” She looked confused.

“Orders from Central,” he said. “You’ll do fine. Just keep them from shooting each other or the civilians.”

“Yes, Commander.”

He nodded to her, then pivoted on his heel and stalked out of the command center. As he left the main chamber, Nero waved to one of the security personnel that were posted outside.