One level up, and all the way forward. Navy Lieutenant Mog Howsky “thought” the nose up, wished she had something to do with her hands, and kept her eyes on the HUD. The “backdoor” as she and her copilot called it consisted of a broad U-shaped valley that lay behind the Thraki stronghold and ran parallel to it.
The plan was to approach from the south and then, when the enemy base was due west, make a hard turn to port. Conditions permitting, Howsky would make two separate passes. The cyborgs would drop during the first, engage the weapons emplacements, and secure the LZ. With that accomplished, the assault boat would return, offload the soft bodies, and haul ass. Assuming I have one to haul, Howsky thought to herself.
Mountains rose on both sides, sparks floated up to greet them, and the hard pan began. “All right,”
HorlaKa growled, using his external speakers in spite of the fact that there was no need to, “we are two from dirt. Remove safeties—prepare to drop.”
Conscious of what awaited them and the importance of their role, the cyborgs were silent. They could
“feel” the side-to-side motion as the ship jinked back and forth. Thanks to the fact that they could “see”
via the landing craft’s external sensors, the team knew what to expect. A missile raced over her head and a green tracer whipped past the cockpit as Howsky completed the run. Commands that originated in her brain burped through the computer-assisted interface to make things happen. Flaps fell, jets fired, and the ship started to stall. Repellors stabbed the darkness, the belly gun fired, and slugs hosed the ridgeline. There it was, just as the simulators said it would be, a flat area, a series of duracrete weapons emplacements, and the stacks beyond.
There was a cracking sound as a high velocity slug punched a hole in the canopy and took Second Lieutenant
Gorky’s head off. Howsky felt her friend drop out of the control matrix, swore as blood splattered the side of her helmet, and forced herself to concentrate. The tubes opened on command, the borgs dropped free, and she turned to port. If anything happened, if the boat took a hit, the hard bodies would be safe. Well, not safe, but safer. She lined up the targeting reticule on the pillbox and thumbed the pickle. Slugs marched their way up to a pillbox and forced their way inside. Something exploded, and flames belched out through the side-mounted cooling vents.
Lastow “heard” the buzzer, “felt” the clamps release, and nothing happened. He should have been falling, should have cleared the ship, but hadn’t dropped more than an inch or two. Okay, okay, the cyborg said to himself, it’s a jam. How many simulated jams have you cleared? A hundred? Yeah, easily. Test the circuits, look for shorts, reroute the signal. Electricity did as it was told, a relay closed, and the clamps opened.
It was only then, as the Trooper IF body dropped clear of the ship, that the legionnaire remembered to check the target, discovered that the boat had cleared the ridge, and realized he was still in the process of falling. Not ten feet as he had planned, but a hundred feet, onto the rocks below. Those who monitored his scream, and that included HorlaKa, would never forget the sound. But there was no time for sympathy, for grief, or any of the other emotions that tried to push their way in. Thraki shells exploded all around. The Hudathan gave his orders. “Form a line abreast! Missiles first!
Engage the weapons emplacements!”
Dor Dupio, with Lastow’s scream still echoing through his mind, launched two missiles at once. They sensed heat, accelerated away, and hit the closest pillbox. Light flashed, thunder cracked, and the bunker came apart.
“Passable,” HorlaKa commented calmly as the cyborgs advanced along the ridge, “though wasteful. One missile would have been sufficient.”
Dupio started to object, started to tell the hatchet head he was crazy, and realized it was a waste of time. All of them were crazy.
Someone, HorlaKa thought it was Himley, yelled “Hit the deck!”
The noncom obliged, “felt” something warm pass over his head, and “heard” the assault boat crash. Metal screeched, a turbine roared, and something exploded. Santana staggered, tried to pull the shard of hull metal out of his chest, and collapsed. HorlaKa got to his feet. “The airshafts! Follow me!”
Bak BorloKa, the second Hudathan on the team questioned the order, but followed it. What of those on the landing craft? Some were clansmen.
But there was no time to think, only to act. Thraki troops boiled up out of the ground and opened fire. That was a mistake. With no cyborgs of their own, the defenders were outgunned. Arm-mounted Catling guns roared, energy cannons burped, and the soft bodies ceased to exist. HorlaKa felt orgasm after orgasm ripple through a body he no longer possessed—and found the split-second necessary to hate the scientists for what they had done to him. To take the pleasure associated with the creation of life and use it as a reward for destroying it... What could be more twisted?
But there was no time to think, to do more than run, as the airshafts rose, and the resistance started to fade. The first objective had been secured—but what of the second? The borgs were too big to fit inside the airshafts and too clumsy to lower themselves to the bottom. The mission was at risk. Lieutenant SeebaKa felt the SLM hit the ship, heard the explosion, and knew they were in trouble. He yelled, “Hang on!” took his own advice, and saw the deck tilt.
The pilot was fighting for control, the infantry officer could tell that, and struggled to suppress his fear. Fear he wasn’t supposed to feel, fear that signaled his weakness, fear that... The ship side-slipped into the ground. Howsky
