John Ringo: The Hero

Tirdal was last, attaching the harness across his chest and letting the molecular weave bond with itself. The hardware behind his helmet snaked forward to provide commo and oxygen. There were minor sighs at his tardiness, which ended as the pod abruptly sprung off. Gs rose heavily to more than triple the local level.

The ground shrank below them, the pod reaching a moderate altitude of three thousand meters in about seventeen seconds. It seemed to loiter at the top of its parabolic trajectory, then it began its descent.

The designers of the bounce pod had been clever, but not very military minded. With very few exceptions, bouncing high over a battlefield was suicidal. With even fewer exceptions, rear-echelon personnel didn’t like speed and altitude, especially when strapped to the outside of said conveyance ("vehicle” being too kind a term for the thing). The craft wasn’t practical for combat, and terrified the hell out of support troops so they’d refuse to board. Other than a very few specific rescue operations — in deep gorges, for example, and even that was dangerous with protruding shelves of rock — the only use was for getting around a practice range. How the hell the damned thing had made it through selection in the first place, and who the hell had made a buck off it, and which masochistic sons of bitches actually enjoyed pogoing around with their lunches in their throats were long standing topics of bull sessions.

The pod was descending. It was dropping like a rock. Bungee jumpers thought they knew what adrenaline was. If they had any idea…

The ground came up fast. Faster. Despite familiarity, everyone except Dagger and Tirdal clenched and gritted their teeth. Dagger was a sociopath about such things, refusing to flinch, and Tirdal didn’t have a human perspective on altitude as it became height and then “Oh-shit-we’re-going-to-die.”

The pod hit the ground, their stomachs dropped into their boots, then they were heading up again, brains rattling in their heads as blood was pulled out of their brains.

Luckily, it was only two bounces in to range control.

Ration packs were the rule for exercises, so the same for practice. Never mind that they’d be “practicing” with them for the next several weeks. It was SOP.

“Hell, I can’t eat after that,” Thor said, looking a bit green around the ears.

“Yeah, let’s just sit for a bit first,” Gun Doll agreed, panting. They both sought seats on the hewn wooden benches available under a shelter roof. Tourists would have found them rustic. To the troops, it was simply an indication of the military’s cheap attitude about them. Why spend money for the grunts, when there were conference rooms that needed shamogany tables? They collapsed, still staggering, and dropped their harnesses behind them. Weapons slumped across knees or down to lean against the bench, but still controlled and with muzzles away from each other. An accidental discharge, even with the practice projectiles that evaporated upon hitting armor, would be messily lethal at close range.

Soon, they were all seated, Bell Toll up front with the range instructor, a hologram building between them. “Tirdal,” Bell Toll said.

“Sir,” the Darhel acknowledged. He and everyone else knew what was coming.

“You’ve got the dexterity of a herd of goonyaks.” The captain’s voice wasn’t mean, but certainly had a ring of disgust to it.

“Sorry, sir,” Tirdal replied. There wasn’t much he could say against the charge. It was a human metaphor, and he had been clumsy.

“Dagger,” Bell Toll said as he turned.

“Yo,” the sniper replied around a mouthful of ration packaging.

“ ‘Yo, sir ,’ if you don’t mind.” Without waiting for a response, he said, “ ‘Keep on ’em,’ is not a very practical order, would you agree?”

“Ah, hell. I’m sorry, sir. But I was getting good shots and we all knew we were screwed anyway.”

“ ‘Screwed anyway.’ ” There was a moment’s pause and the captain said, “If you have that attitude, yes. But look here.” He indicated the holo and waited until he had everyone’s attention. It only took a moment; they were fundamentally good troops, if high-strung. “Had you paid attention to anything other than your shooting, you could have had everyone suppress for Doll, and had her lay fire from here,” he waved a pointer into the image, sending minor ripples as he disrupted the transmission, “and then the rest of you could have closed. Think you might have done more damage that way?”

“Yes, sir,” Dagger agreed, chastised.

“Good shooting, yes. Keep an eye on other things, too. Gorilla.”

“Sir,” the hulk replied. He knew it was about not moving enough.

“If you want to sit still and be a target, we can arrange it.”

“I know, sir. Overeager on the task.”

“Yes, and it cost you. But that was one hell of a job with the critters,” was the admission, with a grin. “Can you do that on the run?”

“I can, sir. And will.”

“Doll…”

They ate, they watched themselves screw up all over again in the holo, and a few snide comments flew at Tirdal, who had made more than his share of mistakes, being the new guy. But he’d also moved fast on the assault, and gotten into good cover. He had some raw edges still, but was no slouch and the rest of them knew it. He said nothing. Neither did they, after the initial cracks.

“Okay, on top of all that,” Bell Toll concluded, and everyone focused, “the incidents with feral Posleen are up sixty percent. Three God Kings came trotting into Bergen over the weekend, as you may have heard.” There were nods. The three had come in as a coordinated attack, in fact, with almost two hundred normals under their control. They wielded primarily sticks and stones, with a couple of scavenged shotguns and some flammable fluids, but it had taken most of an afternoon for the town militia to round them up and exterminate them. Damage had been described as “moderate,” but that included destroyed buildings and forty casualties. At least six casualties had been fatal so far, with others likely to die from their wounds. “Well, Governor General Sunday is not happy, and we’re about to start a series of patrols to crop the damned things again. So as soon as we’re back from this mission, you can plan on some hunting.” To the enthusiastic response he said, “I knew that would make you happy.” It didn’t make the captain happy. It would play even more hell with the evaluation schedule. But the troops would get to break things and kill Posties, which was the real point of having them.

“So, all in all, we know what we did wrong. And I let it go wrong, to see how things would play out. More practice would be good, but it’s what we’ve got. And we should be avoiding contact on this mission anyway. We’ll do one more this afternoon, a sneak instead of a crash. Tirdal, stick close to Ferret and learn how to be quiet. Then we’ll dog off and pack for lift.”

Tirdal nodded, the others murmured, and lunch was choked down in a hurry at the prospect of wrapping up.

There were still mutters about Tirdal. There would be. But they’d disappear if he worked out to be as quiet as he was determined and stoic.

The stealth insertion ship was cramped. No niceties were put in for the psyche of the crew or passengers. It wasn’t likely the ship would ever see passengers, except perhaps a courier. Commando teams were regarded more as cargo than passengers in regard to transit.

Pipes ran along bare overheads, lockers lined the bulkheads and passageways, and structural gear poked from every possible bare spot. There was a stink of burned metal from welding during maintenance, a tang of ozone and a musty, sweaty smell of age and dust that hadn’t been precipitated by the environmental systems. Everything was plain white, though slightly faded with age despite regular cleaning and maintenance. The only spot of color was the garishly bright safety-red airlock. Another hatch led to the crew’s section of the ship. It was crowded in the compartment, the team crushed close together, with Gorilla hunched nearly double with the barely two meter height of the overhead. “Wish they’d build one sized for normal people,” he groused. Really, though, he was used to it. His entire life had been spent in a crouch, he often felt. And the ship was close around everyone, he simply felt it more.