Though the MPG trained obsessively, it had never seen actual combat before and only a few of the special forces troops had done any time in the WestHem army or marines. Of those that had, only three had seen actual shooting in Argentina or Cuba. Now, the prospect of actual fighting, the possibility of delivering or receiving death was upon them.
Once weapons were drawn the company was moved to a rarely used loading terminal that led to the outside. One of the C-8s that the MPG possessed was docked with the terminal just outside the taxiway entrance. The C-8, like all Martian based surface to orbit craft, was essentially a reinforced terrestrial aircraft fuselage without the wings or tail. On the ground, in the loading position, it rested horizontally upon landing gear that folded out from the bottom. The two pilots were clearly visible through the windscreen going through their pre-launch checks. The bottom of the fuselage was covered with a layer of heat resistant material that was able to withstand the inferno of atmospheric re-entry and the aft end was fitted with two rocket outlets capable of propelling the craft to orbital speed. Only the front third of the spacecraft was capable of carrying passengers or cargo. The rear two-thirds were taken up by the engine components and the tanks of liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen that fueled them. The outside of the craft was painted as were all MPG equipment: in the shades of red camouflage scheme.
The passenger seats had been removed from the spacecraft in order to create more room. Though it wouldn't be a very comfortable flight, the entire company of 160 people and their equipment were able to fit into one C-8. Lon and his squad were among the first to embark. Since the C-8 was at idle and its artificial gravity field was operating, there had been no period of lightening. Lon found himself sitting near one of the windows, his weapon resting against his shoulder, his pack pushing against the wall behind him, two of his men pushing at him from either side. His legs began to ache almost immediately from the cramped position. He, like the rest of the company, kept his thoughts mostly silent as the doors were sealed up and the spacecraft began to move away from the building.
They rolled out across the sandy taxiways, out to the very far reaches of the outside base area, where the thrust from the rocket engines would not cause any damage. The trip took nearly twenty minutes but finally they arrived at the launch platform, a hydraulically operated lift built into the ground. The spacecraft positioned itself carefully and there was a clank as the magnetic arms locked onto them, holding them firmly into place. Soon the lift moved into action, tilting the aircraft upward to the optimum launch angle of seventy degrees. Watching out the window, Lon was able to see the ground tilting away from them but he felt no pull of gravity towards the rear of the spacecraft. The artificial gravity field kept everyone oriented to the inside of the spacecraft instead of to the planetary surface outside. He could have, if he'd wished, stood up and walked around normally, just as if he was on level ground.
'Take-off in ten seconds,' the pilot announced over the intercom. He then began a countdown. When he reached zero the roar of the engines could be heard reverterbrating throughout the ship. There was a slight sense of vibration but nothing else as they left the ground and streaked into the sky on a fountain of orange rocket exhaust. Though they were accelerating at more than three times the force of standard gravity, no one was pushed backwards and no one had to brace themselves. That was the inertial damping system at work.
Lon continued to watch out the window as the ground receded beneath them. Within two minutes they were more than twenty thousand meters above Eden and he could see the high rises and the agricultural greenhouses spread out beneath like a relief map. He tried to pick out the MPG base that they had launched from and might have been able to after a moment's study had they not rolled to a different attitude, obscuring his view.
Within five minutes of launch they were clear of the atmosphere and moving at orbital velocity. The main engines of the C-8 shut off for the moment and the maneuvering thrusters kicked on, angling them upward. When the proper attitude had been reached the main engines fired up again, although only at half power, so they could be forced into a higher orbit for the rendezvous with the orbiting city. Triad was in geosynchronous orbit over the opposite hemisphere. In order to reach it a spacecraft had to climb to an altitude of 17,000 kilometers, which, when at orbital speed, would perpetually keep it over the same point on the surface. The flight computers in the cockpit of course did all of this orbital maneuvering and positioning. A mere man could conceivably figure all of this out with paper and a pencil but it might take him several weeks to do so.
The majority of the trip was spent coasting along in the high orbit, slowly catching up with their target. From Lon's perspective near the window, he never saw Triad approaching at all. There was only the blackness of space, the brilliance of the stars, and the nothingness that was the night side of Mars far below. Finally, ninety minutes after launch, the maneuvering thrusters fired again, slowing their approach. Lon saw the lights of a few other spacecraft in the distance, none close enough or clear enough for him to identify, and then, suddenly, there was the outline of Triad before him.
Orbiting space cities were engineering marvels, truly the culmination of all that man had learned about construction and space flight. More than just a space station where cargo was loaded and unloaded, Triad was home to more than 600,000 people and contained all of the amenities that any modern city had to offer. There was a level that could be referred to as a main street level. It contained parks, duck ponds, even a golf course and a football stadium. It was crisscrossed with a grid pattern of streets where pedestrians could walk or ride the trams from one place to another. It was on the main level where the spaceport was attached that huge tanker ships and cargo ships bound for Jupiter or Earth could dock, that passengers could load and unload for trips to Earth or down to the Martian planetary surface. Large food and steel carriers launched from Mars — much bigger versions of the C-8 that Lon was now flying in —would transfer their cargo to the larger, interplanetary ships. Huge hydrogen carriers from Ganymede would disgorge liquid hydrogen and methane into storage tanks. This busy spaceport, which employed over thirty thousand, was Triad's main reason for existence.
Like other Martian cities, Triad construction took advantage of vertical space instead of horizontal. But in orbit, vertical space went two ways instead of one. From the main street level huge building rose both up and down. There were office buildings of course, and apartment buildings (virtually no one on Mars or above it owned a domicile) where people lived. The more expensive and exclusive buildings tended to be near the edges of the station while the low-rent and public housing buildings where the lower class and the hundred thousand some-odd unemployed lived, were in the center. The farther away from street level you got, the more the apartment would cost you. The most exclusive buildings, both offices and apartments, were on the outside, below street level, since these tended to have beautiful views of Mars hovering far below.
From his perspective in the spacecraft window, Lon was able to see the most exclusive of these buildings stretching both above and below him, their lighted windows glittering majestically against the blackness. At the street level he could see the tiny figures of people moving to and fro through the glass roof. They went busily about their business, for despite the fact that it was midnight below on the Martian surface, that distinction meant nothing on Triad, which followed New Pittsburgh time as its standard.
They traveled along the edge of the city for some minutes as the maneuvering thrusters fired from various parts of the ship, slowing them and easing them into an invisible travel corridor. Lon had only been to Triad once before, when he was a child, and he stared wide-eyed out the window as they passed different sections of it. Soon they came drifting up to a docking port that protruded out from the MPG space guard base. There was more thruster activity as they eased into position and then there was a solid clank as the mating took place.
'Welcome to Triad,' the pilot told them over the intercom. 'Docking is complete and we'll be opening the doors in about one minute.'
The cramped and weary men of the Eden company pulled themselves to their feet and prepared to disembark. Lon had to stretch and flex his legs for a moment to restore circulation to them. He was not the only one performing this maneuver.
'Okay, guys,' said Captain Armand, commanding officer of the Eden company, 'I know it wasn't exactly a first class flight, but we're here now. Let's get ourselves off of this thing in an orderly fashion so they can go to New Pittsburgh and pick up another company. Form up by platoon on the other side and we'll take you to the staging area.'
The doors opened up and one by one they marched through the docking port and into the main cargo receiving point for the base. Shipping containers were stacked against three of the walls and electric forklifts cruised back and forth, moving them from one place to another or stacking them on electric carts for transport to other parts of the base. The men and women driving the forklifts or unpacking the containers paid no attention to the arrival of the special forces team.
The front wall of the room was fitted with large windows that looked out on space and the docked C-8. The men formed up in front of this window, making four lines of forty soldiers apiece. They had to scrunch a little closer
