The troopers sat in two rows opposite each other, a single aisle running between. Next to the soldiers in their hulking armour, Ripley felt small and vulnerable. In addition to her duty suit she wore only a flight jacket and a communications headset. No one offered her a gun.
Hudson was too juiced up to sit still. The adrenaline was flowing and his eyes were wide. He prowled the aisle, his movements predatory and exaggerated, a cat ready to pounce As he paced, he kept up a steady stream of psychobabble unavoidable in the confined space.
'I am ready, man. Ready to get it on. Check it out. I am the ultimate. State-of-the-art. You do not want to mess with me Hey, Ripley.' She glanced up at him, expressionless. 'Don't worry, little lady. Me and my squad of ultimate killing machines will protect you. Check it out.' He slapped the controls of the servocannon mounted in the overhead gun bay careful not to hit any of the ready studs.
'Independently targeting particle-beam phalanx gun. Ain't she a cutey? Vwap! Fry half a city with this puppy. We got tactical smart missiles, phased-plasma pulse-rifles, RPGs. We got sonic ee-lectronic cannons, we got nukes no flukes, we got knives, sharp sticks—'
Hicks reached up, grabbed Hudson by his battle harness and yanked him down into an empty seat. His voice was low but it carried.
'Save it.'
'Sure, Hicks.' Hudson sat back, suddenly docile.
Ripley nodded her thanks to the corporal. Young face, old eyes, she thought as she studied him. Seen more than he should have in his time. Probably more than he's wanted to She didn't mind the quiet that followed Hudson's soliloquy There was hysteria enough below. She didn't need to listen to any extra. The corporal leaned toward her.
'Don't mind Hudson. Don't mind any of 'em. They're all like that, but in a tight spot there're none better.'
'If he can shoot his gun as well as he does his mouth, maybe it'll take my blood pressure down a notch.'
Hicks grinned. 'Don't worry on that score. Hudson's a comtech, but he's a close-combat specialist, just like everyone else.'
'You too?'
He settled back in his seat: content, self-contained, ready 'I'm not here because I wanted to be a pastry chef.'
Motors began to throb. The dropship lurched as it was lowered out of the cargo bay on its grapples.
'Hey,' Frost muttered, 'anybody check the locks on this coffin? If they're not tight, we're liable to bounce right out the bottom of the shuttle.'
'Keep cool, sweets,' said Dietrich. 'Checked 'em out myself We're secure. This six-wheeler goes nowhere until we kiss dirt. Frost looked relieved.
The dropship's engines rumbled to Me. Stomachs lurched as they left the artificial gravity field of the Sulaco behind. They were free now, floating slowly away from the big transport. Soon they would be clear and the engines would fire fully. Legs and hands began to float in zero-gee, but their harnesses held them tight to their seats. The floor and walls of the APC quivered as the engines thundered. Gravity returned with a vengeance.
Burke looked like he was on a fishing cruiser off Jamaica. He was grinning eagerly, anxious for the real adventure to begin 'Here we go!'
Ripley closed her eyes, then opened them almost immediately. Anything was better than staring at the black backsides of her lids. They were like tiny videoscreens alive with wild sparks and floating green blobs. Malign shapes appeared in the blobs The taut, confident faces of Frost, Crowe, Apone, and Hicks made for more reassuring viewing.
Up in the cockpit, Spunkmeyer and Ferro studied readouts and worked controls. Gees built up within the APC as the dropship's speed increased. A few lips trembled. No one said a word as they plunged toward atmosphere.
Grey limbo below. The dark mantle of clouds that shrouded the surface of Acheron suddenly became something more than a pearlescent sheen to be admired from above. The atmosphere was dense and disturbed, boiling over dry deserts and lifeless rocks, rendering the landscape invisible to everything but sophisticated sensors and imaging equipment.
The dropship bounced through alien jet streams, shuddering and rocking. Ferro's voice sounded icy calm over the open intercom as she shouldered the streamlined craft through the dust-filled gale.
'Switching to DCS ranging. Visibility zero. A real picnic ground. What a bowl of crap.'
'Two-four-oh.' Spunkmeyer was too busy to respond in kind to her complaints. 'Nominal to profile. Picking up some hull ionization.'
Ferro glanced at a readout. 'Bad?'
'Nothing the filters can't handle. Winds two hundred plus. A screen between them winked to life, displaying a topographic model of the terrain they were overflying 'Surface ranging on. What'd you expect, Ferro? Tropical beaches?' He nudged a trio of switches. 'Starting, to hit thermals. Vertical shift unpredictable. Lotta swirling.'
'Got it.' Ferro thumbed a button. 'Nothing that ain't in our programming. At least the weather hasn't changed down there.' She eyed a readout. 'Rough air ahead.'
The pilot's voice sounded briskly over the APC's intercom system. 'Ferro, here. You all read the profile on this dirtball Summertime fun it ain't. Stand by for some chop.'
Ripley's eyes flicked rapidly over her companions, crammed tightly together in the confines of the armoured personne carrier. Hicks lay slumped to one side, asleep in his seat harness. The bouncing seemed not to bother him in the slightest. Most of the other troopers sat quietly, staring straight ahead, their minds mulling over private thoughts. Hudson was talking steadily and silently to himself. His lips moved ceaselessly. Ripley didn't try to read them.
Burke was studying the interior layout of the APC with professional interest. Across from him Gorman sat with his eyes shut tight. His skin was pale, and the sweat stood out on his forehead and neck. His hands were in nonstop motion rubbing the backs of his knees. Massaging away tenseness—or attempting to dry clamminess, she thought. Maybe it would help him to have someone to talk to.
'How many drops is this for you, Lieutenant?'
His eyes snapped open and he blinked at her 'Thirty eight—simulated.'
'How many combat drops?' Vasquez asked pointedly.
Gorman tried to reply as though it made no difference. A minor point, and what did it have to do with anything, anyway? 'Well—two. Three, including this one.'
Vasquez and Drake exchanged a glance, said nothing. They didn't have to. Their respective expressions were sufficiently eloquent. Ripley gave Burke an accusing look, and he responded with one of indifferent helplessness, as if to say 'Hey, I'm a civilian. Got no control over military assignments.'
Which was pure bull, of course, but there was nothing to be gained by arguing about it now. Acheron lay beneath them Earthside bureaucracy very far away indeed. She chewed her lower lip and tried not to let it bother her. Gorman seemed competent enough. Besides, in any actual confrontation or combat, Apone would run the show. Apone and Hicks.
Cockpit voices continued to reverberate over the intercom Ferro managed to outgripe Spunkmeyer three to one. In between gripes and complaints they managed to fly the dropship.
'Turning on final approach,' she was saying. 'Coming around to a seven-zero-niner. Terminal guidance locked in.'
'Always knew you were terminal,' said Spunkmeyer. It was an old pilot's joke, and Ferro ignored it.
'Watch your screen. I can't fly this sucker and watch the terrain readouts too. Keep us off the mountains.' A pause then, 'Where's the beacon?'
'Nothing on relay.' Spunkmeyer's voice was calm. 'Must've gone out along with communications.'
'That's crazy and you know it. Beacons are automatic and individually powered.'
'Okay. You find the beacon.'
'I'll settle for somebody waving a lousy flag.' Silence followed. None of the troopers appeared concerned. Ferro and Spunkmeyer had set them down softer than a baby's kiss in worse weather than Acheron's.