In Her Name

promised few landing injuries, although it left little in the way of cover for the attackers. “Landing in that rocky stuff last time really stunk.”

Reza nodded grimly. There had been fourteen injuries, two of them serious, in their previous landing in the training area’s desert zone, a wasteland of sharp, irregular granite rock formations that had been a literal hell to jump into and then fight out of. Reza’s battalion had lost nearly two-thirds of its strength – on paper – by the time the administrative critique was given. It had not been a glowing one.

In only a few more minutes, the appointed time had arrived. “Prepare for drop,” Nicole announced from the flight deck. An illuminated bar that ran the length of the cargo compartment suddenly turned red. “Two minutes.”

Unlike many ships and atmospheric craft, Marine dropships had no designated jump- or loadmaster. That was the responsibility of the senior man in the jump group. There was simply too little room aboard to spare.

“Stand up!” Reza bellowed as he moved aft toward the jump doors that had now cycled open. Beyond the eerie blue sheen of the force fields that kept the air in the compartment from exploding into the vacuum beyond, Reza could see the cloud-shrouded outline of the target continent. A blinking red cursor in his helmet visor informed him of the drop zone’s exact location in the middle of an enormous expanse of green vegetation.

The men and women of his group unharnessed themselves and checked over their equipment and themselves one last time. Once they had stepped through either of the two doors at the rear of the compartment, they would not get another chance before they hit the ground. And mistakes made now could make that one long, hard step.

“Sound off!” Reza barked.

“First squad, ready!”

“Second squad, ready!”

“Third squad, ready!”

“Heavy weapons, ready!”

Eustus nodded inside his helmet, the movement invisible to anyone outside. “That’s it then,” he said.

“Reza,” he heard Nicole’s voice one more time on the platoon command channel, “thirty seconds…” She paused. “And please, mon ami,” she said quietly, “be careful.”

“Roger,” he replied. “And I will.”

“Don’t worry, ma’am,” Eustus’s lighthearted voice broke in. “I’ll keep his butt out of trouble.”

The flight status strip above their heads turned from a mournful red to a brilliant green.

“Go!”

In twos, the Marine trainees shuffled out the doors and fell into the infinite void of space.

* * *

“There they go,” murmured Jodi as she saw dozens of new blips appear on her sensors. Normally, the countermeasures devices on all the ships and the suits themselves would be active, trying to erase their signature from any electronic or thermal detectors. But even here at Quantico, some small compromise was made for safety. Each suit had a beacon built into it to make finding the trainees easy. The only combat jump Jodi had ever made was when she ejected over Rutan, and that had been enough. “Bon voyage, guys.”

“Cut the chatter, pilot,” Thorella snapped from the seat behind her. “Come to course three three two mark eight seven and reduce your throttle to station-keeping. I want to stay close to them during descent.”

“Sure thing, Markus,” she replied casually. While he was the acting group coordinator, he did not outrank her. She was senior to him in time in grade, and it amused her to goad him by addressing him on a first name basis.

Sergeant Major Aquino remained silent.

* * *

Reza maneuvered slightly to his left to get a better view of his platoon’s dispersal. A series of four wedges representing each of the squads under his command was spread over a few kilometers now, with one squad ahead of him and the rest behind. Eustus, the platoon sergeant, was between the third and last – heavy weapons – squads. Behind and above his own silently falling formation, five hundred and twelve other figures in space armor floated and jetted about as they sought to reach their individual falling stations within the battalion’s designated thousand cubic kilometer maneuver zone.

For once, Reza was thankful for the computers that calculated where everyone should be on the way down. Exo-atmospheric drops were always a challenge in geometry: extra distance between individuals and units was better when they were still high up, to keep losses to a minimum in case the enemy brought any heavy weapons to bear on them. But later, as they entered the atmosphere – if there was one – and neared the ground, their formation needed to tighten up considerably if they were to maintain vital unit integrity. A combat unit that landed together and intact could fight. One that did not was nothing more than meat waiting for the Kreelans’ swords.

That, Reza told himself, we are not. This would be their best jump, he thought, and his blood began to sing at the devastation – simulated though it might be – they would inflict on their enemies waiting below. His comrades, while lacking many of the benefits of a martial upbringing such as his own, nonetheless would prove worthy opponents for Her Children when the time came. For a species intellectually dedicated to the pursuit of peace, humans were finely adapted for the art of making war.

The altitude display on his visor continued to unwind toward zero as they approached their target, the miniature field generators of the suits deflecting the friction heat of the upper atmosphere as they plummeted downward. With a little more than eighty kilometers of altitude to cover, and a slant range to the drop zone of about one hundred and fifty, they only had a few minutes of flight remaining.

High above, the drop ships were returning to the carrier to bring down the next battalion that was scheduled to jump. Only the group coordinator’s fighter remained with them, its rakish hull barely visible to Reza’s naked eye.

He clicked down to the platoon’s common net, listening for any idle chatter. There was none. There were only a few clipped words as people maneuvered to keep position, informing their neighbors they were moving, and where to, with their actions echoed in their helmet data displays.

Reza smiled. It was going very well. Their training was paying–

The thought was torn from his mind, as he suddenly felt crushed within his suit and a shrieking roar filled his skull. The planet rushing up at him suddenly began whirling, faster and faster, until it was nothing more than a kaleidoscope of color that alternated with the black of space and the shining stars. He heard voices calling to him on the comm link, but he could not make out the words over the roar of what he realized must be his suit’s maneuvering jets. Worse, he himself was unable to speak, the air crushed out of his lungs by the induced g-forces as he spun out of control. His arms and legs felt like they were about to rip out of their sockets as he spun around and around, faster and faster, and his vision began to narrow to a tiny tunnel, then vanished into a gray mist.

In only a few seconds, Reza blacked out.

* * *

“Reza!” Eustus cried as he watched his friend’s suit spin crazily out of control, one of its thrusters firing like a roman candle. He desperately clicked over to the emergency frequency, biting on the control so savagely he caught his tongue. A sudden taste of salty copper filled his mouth. “Mayday! Mayday!” he shouted. “This is First Platoon. Reza’s suit looks like it’s had a malfunction. He’s heading down and out of control!”

“I’ve got a lock on him, First Platoon,” Jodi’s controlled voice came back. “Moving to intercept.”

“Negative,” Thorella’s voice interjected coldly. “I’ve got over five hundred other people out here to watch over, and this ship isn’t capable of making a pickup. We don’t have suits on.”

“Then what the hell–”

Another voice, accented by his native Tagalog, broke into the conversation. “Camden, designate someone to take over your platoon and break formation forward of your group,” Sergeant Major Aquino ordered tersely. “Pilot, rendezvous with Camden as quickly as possible.”

“Roger,” she said thankfully. Fuck you, Thorella, she thought.

In about fifteen seconds she had Eustus in sight. “Now what?” she asked.

“Camden,” the sergeant major said, ignoring her, “what I have in mind is going to take some guts. Can you handle it?”

“We’re wasting time, sar-major,” Eustus replied quickly. “Let’s have it.”