Hard Drop Read online

  And then the body shifted under their hands, and the last piece of cloth fell away. The face that greeted them was wild and feral, its mouth curled in a snarl, its skin cracked and bleeding from frostbite. It was hideous, without question, but more than that, it was human.

  “You’re kidding me.” The younger man said in a small, hollow voice, and the Captain turned away, his face now hard and determined.

  “Don’t look for demons.” He said coldly, staring at the bodies still floating in the open crate. “Men are more than enough.” He set his jaw and turned away, scanning the empty bay above. “Men are always more than enough.”

  Tyco stared at the frozen corpse, at his vacant, human stare, and nodded, slowly understanding. The ghost ships, the murdered crews, the broken, splintered bodies – all of it, the rumors notwithstanding, had only been the work of men.

  A hail of bullets sounded through the comm, exploding into the full-throated rattle of open combat. The unit had finally breached the bridge.

  ONE: HUMBLE BEGINNINGS

  Drop Commander Tyco Hale inherited very little from his family. Not money, not land, not even a potentially profitable berth on a spacegoing prospecting vessel. They had been poor workers on a satellite colony, cut off from the inner rim and left to the mercies of the authorities. Tyco had left home at eighteen with the clothes on his back and a small talisman bracelet of his home world around his wrist, the kind inner rim tourists purchased on vacation and lost carelessly, long before reaching their home worlds. The clothes were long gone, replaced by a long line of regulation service uniforms, but the talisman remained, wrapped tightly around his skin where it had stayed through twelve long years, eight official campaigns, and an endless tally of unofficial actions.

  He had kept his other inheritance as well, passed down to him from his father: hope.

  It was in his name, given to him by a man who looked at the sky, at the deafening, intermittently pitch-black silence of outer space and saw possibility, not doom, and new worlds beyond the horizon. And so he gave his son the name of one of the early, great astronomers, and hoped for a better future he could not provide.

  Now, at age thirty, eleven years after the incident on the Conrad, Tyco had met that future: in stasis, in transit, in the sullen, quiet light years between assignments, and most of all, in the hollow, uncaring eyes of the bureaucrats who decided his fate. He had seen the galaxy, and several others beside, and he had seen little to support his father’s dreams. He had joined the Orbital Tactical Legion with an eye to staying at the leading edge of those dreams, rolling back the frontiers of the galaxy with the firm hope of finding something good there, something noble and new. He had given twelve years of his life to the Legion, many of them in stasis, in cold space, shuttling between one objective and the next. Thrusters and the gravity engine had cut down significantly on the time debt needed to reach the outer planets, but they had not eliminated it completely. OTL deployments were nearly always urgent, but the distances were great. It was common to find that units had deployed only to find they had reached their strategic objectives too late, finding them abandoned or overrun. Often, they arrived just in time, to tired faces and dire situations. They were never early.

  To some, including Tyco's father, the star systems were a tranquil sea, a peaceful demonstration of the vision and cooperation that man could achieve. After twelve years in the Legion, Tyco knew better: the surface might be calm, but dark, angry currents roiled beneath it, threatening always to break out into full-scale storm. In countless shadow wars, he had seen the true weakness and fragility of the peace, and the high cost of keeping it in line. After twelve years of fighting, he could say with grim certainty that the universe would never be so large it couldn’t be contained by the small-mindedness of those who oversaw it.

  If you asked him, now, what the odds of his mission’s survival were, he would tell you zero. It wasn’t that he was a pessimist, or that he was used to failure. Nor was he exaggerating: the odds of reaching a coordinated landing zone from low-earth orbit were next to zero, make no mistake. Doing that, and then regrouping into an effective fighting unit was even more improbable. Effecting coordinated assaults after that, with all the inherent logistical difficulties that presented, was, quite simply, ludicrous. And doing all that in hostile territory, behind enemy lines, that wasn’t worth considering.

  But that didn't mean he hadn’t done it, time after time. He just knew, with every jump, that he was being sent to his death. That the people giving the orders knew that. And, more than that, that they didn’t care. In spite of that, his inheritance – hope – remained, and it sparked anew every time a new planet came into view through the observation deck windows: the hope that, this time, the dream of a brighter future could come true. Even this time, as the shimmering green pearl lay below, even with the derision in the eyes of the Lieutenant before him, Tyco Hale felt that hope.

  The Lieutenant was only the most recent in the progression of overpromoted academy kids who preferred the way they looked in dress whites to getting their hands dirty. The name on the uniform changed from op to op, but never the starched white uniform itself, or the matching, smug, brilliant white smile that completed it. Tyco, in his standard-issue camouflage, imagined shooting the boy now. Not to kill him, mind you, but just to see his horrified reaction as the deep red blood soaked into the snow-white fabric, never to come out again. Tyco set his teeth to keep from smiling, trying to banish the image from his head.

  The planet below was like so many others he’d seen, a graceful curve, its mountains and deserts brown and desolate, its plains marked by large, geometric fields of green vegetation. It was a planet made beautiful by design, from horizon to horizon – and marred, now, by billowing clouds of smoke that rose through the sky and into the upper atmosphere. Even from space, the fingerprint of destruction was evident: a wide, high smoke cloud streamed in long, grey trails across the sun-side of the planet. Tyco had barely had to look at the thin intelligence packet in his hand to know they were being sent into a full-scale war. He’d known that since they’d entered orbit. But that didn’t change the fundamental insanity of the orders.

  “And if the Admiralty ordered you to take this jump?” He asked now, his voice hollow and angry.

  The Lieutenant turned to face Tyco head-on, squaring his shoulders so his nametag was clearly visible: Sorenson. Tyco would remember that. Just like the shit-eating grin on the boy’s face and the condescension in his eyes.

  “With all due respect, Commander, jumping’s your job, not mine.”

  Tyco shook his head, disbelieving. “It’s a bloodbath down there.”

  Lieutenant Sorenson raised his voice purposefully so the aides around could hear. He had been amused, but now he was tired of entertaining Tyco’s frustration. “Oh, I’m sorry, are you scared?”

  “It’s a question of firepower.” Tyco growled back, matching his volume. “My forty against four thousand, minimum, with no armor or artillery. Seem like a good idea to you?”

  “You’re questioning me - ?” Sorenson snapped, rising to the bait.

  “I’m questioning the orders.” Tyco answered, sidestepping the issue while pressing his point home. “I’m asking for a minor tactical change, not to abort the mission.”

  “I know they don’t teach this in the lunar colonies – ” Sorenson answered, accenting lunar as if it were some kind of disease. Tyco gripped the amulet around his wrist more tightly, feeling his knuckles go white. “But let me explain the chain of command.” He paused for emphasis, making sure he had the room's full attention before continuing. “I command, you obey. Understood?”

  “I am responsible for the lives of my troopers.” Tyco responded, and then added, as a resentful afterthought, “Sir.”

  “And you can make this drop with or without your heat shields. Your choice, soldier, but I suggest you make it quickly.”

  Sorenson was smarter than the others, Tyco had to give him that, and he stood, hands balled in f
ury, staring down at the younger man.

  “I’m really damn tired of seeing my men die for your mistakes.” He said, with sudden, unexpected bitterness. One of the aides gasped at that, shocked either by the vehemence of the words or the sentiment they expressed, or both. Probably someone fresh off the central planets, Tyco thought instinctively. A little insubordination always got them hot under the collar.

  “My mistakes?” Sorenson answered, momentarily unsettled but already smiling as he prepared to answer. This was a game he knew how to play. “I’m flattered, Drop Commander, but honestly I just follow orders.” He smiled even wider as he played his hand. “Just like I know you will.”

  Tyco’s knuckles went a paler shade of white against the amulet. He stood stiffly, chastened, saying nothing. He had done all he could, offered what resistance he could muster, and now he could do no more but wait for his dismissal. Tyco was beaten, he knew it and accepted it. As it stood, he hadn't had much hope at the outset of getting their orders changed.

  “Will that be all, sir?” He asked quietly. There was murder in his eyes, but a sudden calm in his voice as the hollow, well-worn resignation of years of service broke through. His mind had moved on already, shifting to the logistics of the ill-conceived jump and deployment ahead of him.

  Sorenson smiled again. Victory seemed to have whitened his teeth even further. “Your drop’s in ten. You have your orders.”

  Tyco stared at him icily before slowly turning away and striding the length of the bridge, feeling the eyes of pretty-boy stewards and junior officers fixed on him as he swept past.

  “Oh and Commander – “ Sorenson called, just as he had reached the door. Tyco turned slowly, staring hatefully over his shoulder at the grinning Lieutenant. “Break a fucking leg, sweetheart.”

  Tyco nodded, forcing himself to smile, and imagined a second bullet slicing through the Lieutenant’s skull. He stepped stiffly out into the hallway, waiting until the door had closed behind him before slamming his helmet against the wall with full-forced, trembling fury. He had had a front-row seat of this same awful combination of bad intelligence work and intractability in the face of high odds for the last decade. It made him furious, but he knew its cause: the Orbital Tactical Legion were legend, but they were also anonymous, its soldiers an interchangeable force of untouchable warriors. Their reputation made them famous, but it also made them expendable. The result was that the Admiralty used them as good-luck charms, a last option when all else had failed and the odds were impossible. He had seen too many troopers die on missions lost before they started.

  He stood there, quietly, letting the cold air of the hallway surround and overwhelm him, sinking back into a levelheaded calm. He picked himself, forcing his heartbeat down until it was quiet, regular and calm. With a heavy sigh, he turned and headed down into the ship. Every step he took made him calmer, taller, and more focused, until his encounter with the young Lieutenant was gone from his mind.

  He stopped at the top of a short flight of stairs, staring at the arrow above that pointed him onwards and down towards the cargo area, checking to make sure the red jump light was not yet flashing. It was not; there was still some time left. He took a deep breath and steeled himself for what came next. The jump was all that mattered now.

  And then he strode down the stairs and pushed through the doors below, into the open bay, in front of 40 pairs of expectant, wary eyes. He moved with raw, unquestionable confidence, without a trace of anger or frustration left in his bearing. It was time to go to work.

  TWO: ZERO HOUR

  “Ten minutes!” Tyco roared as he entered the tight, echoing confines of the cargo bay. In the launch bay, he was king, untouched and unbothered by the interference of the Admiralty's men. He had learned to appreciate this moment of calm before drop over the years.

  The cruiser had been converted for drop, and badly. The cargo area that doubled as their preparation room had not been reconfigured to make it more comfortable or effective. Crammed next to the engine room, with the searing heat pouring through the walls, the tight space was almost unbearably warm. Sweat ran freely down any exposed skin.

  Tyco’s troopers were in various stages of readiness. Most wore at least part of their armored, heat-protected jumpsuits, while some were already fully ready, visors locked in and clouding over with perspiration. Those were the greenhorns. At 18 and 19 years old, they were the youngest of the group. Veterans here were 21, 22 – by 25, if you made it that long, you were a legend, a cold-blooded killer. At thirty, Tyco was both ancient and venerated, though he had not lost a step. He strode through the bay with purposeful, efficient calm, focused energy in every step.

  Despite his years with the unit, Tyco knew only about half of the men and women in his unit. The OTL had an extremely high casualty rate: greenhorns were many, and most didn’t last long enough to become veterans. There were just too many variables involved in deployment, too much that could go wrong. Entry alone claimed a significant number of casualties: no amount of training could prepare you for it adequately, even under perfect, non-combat conditions. Legion training consisted of simulators and water tanks, loose approximations of the violent, final reality of drop. The margin of error built into the simulator, slim though it was, was far more generous than it would be in the field.

  As a result, the unit had a tradition of marking each successful drop on their survival suits: one mark each for the first five, then one more for each five after that. A large X for your twenty-fifth successful drop, if it came to that. Any soldier bearing an X was an unquestioned, respected veteran.

  Tyco’s suit boasted two neat Xs, but he had stopped counting long ago. There didn’t seem to be a point to marking the whims of chance. After a point, it just felt like tempting fate. The marks he’d received since then had come unintentionally, the results of several close calls: burns, shrapnel scars, and a handful of divots where a vindictive Enceledan rebel had tried to push a knife through the overlapping armor. He had almost succeeded, too.

  “Once we break atmo, you have 30 seconds to make your pod before your heat shields burn through.” Tyco had recited it many times, and the veterans, with their single Xs and burn marks, nodded along in time. For the rookies, Tyco knew, these were terrifying words, as they had been for him. There were at least a dozen ways to die even before entering your pod, let alone launching, and there were a thousand ways to go before firing a shot. If you did it right, you had nothing to be afraid of. If. “Make slow movements in the draft. You’re strapped down.” He continued, glancing at a sweating, white-faced young kid barely visible through his clouded visor. “You won’t go flying.” Even through the sweat, the kid visibly blanched. Tyco nodded to him briefly, curtly reassuring, and moved past. For the really fresh ones, there was nothing to be said. It was sink or swim, best of luck, see you on the ground.

  Tyco continued on through the troops, professional and efficient, unhurried but unhesitating, until he found himself face-to-face with the toughest, darkest, most uncompromising eyes ever given to a woman – and smiled. Hog, as she called herself, was one of the oldest soldiers in the unit, almost as old as Tyco. She had well over twenty-five drops under her belt, but Tyco loved her above all for three: the first, early in his command, when she had dead-eyed that same knife-wielding Enceladan rebel inches from his throat from a hundred and seventy yards, and the two since, when he had returned the favor. She had turned her X into a skull-and-crossbones, with a matching tattoo on her shoulder. The mark stood in stark contrast to the old-fashioned, wood-cut rosary that hung around her neck. As far as Tyco knew, she had never seen the need to reconcile the contradiction. He had tried to have her promoted more than once, but the Admiralty didn’t appreciate her attitude any more than his, and anyway, she wanted no part of it.

  The tense frown on his face told her everything she needed to know about his encounter with Sorenson.

  “Save me a seat at the court-martial?” She asked, spitting out the words with a dignified ve
nom. But her eyes shimmered faintly, and Tyco knew she was amused.

  “Hell.” He said. “You can have mine.” And then raised his voice for the benefit of the greenhorns around. “Locked and Loaded, Hog?” He asked.

  “Sure as shit, Cap.” She replied, easily, and he nodded, their habitual pre-drop two-step completed.

  “When she’s all the way open,” Tyco continued his speech. “You’ll see some flames on your armor.” His eyes rested on Poke, a young trooper with three drops under his belt. He was trying hard to look like he belonged, but his eyes were wide open, and the vein on his neck stood out sharply. “Do not be worried.” He said, taking on a kindly, chiding tone. “Your armor will protect you at up to five thousand degree temperatures for half a minute. For those thirty seconds, you are god.” And he smiled at Poke. “What’s the matter, kid, you scared?” He teased.

  Poke stuck out his chin as far as he could, set his jaw, furious, eyes flashing. “No sir!” he responded emphatically, loud enough for Hog to glance over at him, amused.

  Tyco put his arm on Poke’s shoulder paternally. There were those who argued it was best not to get attached to the recruits too early, not before at least ten drops, but then again, Tyco thought, they might last longer if you did. He had waited three drops to do even this much, and it was a calculated gamble. He had lost too many veterans in the past three missions, and he needed experienced troops to take their place. Taking out thirty greenhorns a mission did nothing for the odds of success.

  “Stay out of my slipstream, count to thirty, and pull the chute.” He said, quietly. “The computer will do the rest.” He smiled again, coaxing the boy into a focused calm. “Got it?”