So Raynor tried again, willing his eyes to open, and this time his efforts met with success. His left eye popped open, followed by his right, but the light was so bright that he was forced to close them again.
Raynor’s eyelids fluttered, his pupils made the necessary adjustment, and his vision was restored. Now he realized that the bright orb was the sun! It had risen over the hill Vanderspool had designated as “Charlie” during mission training and was spearing him with its rays.
That was the moment when Raynor discovered it was possible to be alive and in hell at the same time. Because as he struggled to summon some saliva in his bone-dry mouth it became apparent that he was dangling from a rope. A fact made even more obvious when a breeze caused his body to spin. His harness creaked in protest. Oh, God.
It wasn’t long before Raynor realized that he wasn’t alone. A prisoner named Cole Hickson, a twenty-year-old soldier who had been captured during a skirmish in the zone, was suspended, unconscious and badly beaten, off to Raynor’s left. They had shared a cell, and just before Raynor was taken out to be interrogated, Hickson had offered some sage advice. “Try to hide, if you can. Find spider holes in your mind, and crawl into them.”
That advice had carried Raynor through the worst parts of the torture. He had been trained at boot camp to withstand interrogation techniques, but he knew a person could easily forget those skills in the presence of physical pain. He hoped Hickson would survive, but more than that, he hoped the mission to save the POWs would be a success, so that if he himself died, it would be for something.
But that seemed unlikely as Raynor looked past Hickson and saw the bird-pecked remains of a third man. He was little more than a tattered skeleton. They were hanging from spokes attached to a central column. It squeaked as the wind attempted to turn it. Then, as the breeze grew stronger and the spokes began to rotate in earnest, shadows flickered across the camp below.
It didn’t take a genius to figure out that the display was intended to instill fear in the prisoners. Raynor could see a line of POWs shuffling along below, and noticed that none of them were looking up. They had no desire to be reminded of where they were or what could happen to them. And for good reason.
As the sun continued to crawl across the sky Raynor drifted in and out of consciousness from time to time. Eventually a number of such interludes blended together to become one endless nightmare. Something important was supposed to happen once darkness fell, but for the life of him, Raynor couldn’t remember what.
FORT HOWE, ON THE PLANET TURAXIS II
A force of unseen Avengers was flying cover as the dropships waited to be loaded. The Sweetie Pie’s engines were idling, the ramp was down, and the STM platoon was beginning to board. Other dropships, those that would fly in empty to pick up the POWs, were on standby, and would remain so until all the troops were in the air and on their way.
It had been a mistake to let Raynor go. That was something Tychus had come to realize as he watched the soldiers enter the ship. Because while he had plenty of leadership experience, Tychus had never been in command of a unit larger than a squad before. Had Raynor been present, he would have been the logical person to lead the first squad. And handle the sort of pissy personnel issues that Tychus wasn’t very good at.
He was also concerned about Raynor. What if the ruse hadn’t been successful? All he knew was that Raynor had landed outside the zone without incident, but what happened after that was still unknown.
Making the situation worse was the fact that the platoon was supposed to land on three different objectives. A plan that required him to delegate authority to his squad leaders, which went against all his instincts and put him on edge.
In Raynor’s absence, Tychus had been forced to choose between Harnack, Zander, or Ward to lead the first squad. Various arguments could be made for each one. But given that Harnack was too impulsive, and Ward was arguably suicidal, the logical choice was Zander.
Tychus’s thoughts were interrupted as a suit of armor lurched out of the surrounding gloom. “Excuse me, Sergeant,” Speer said, “would you unload your troops please? I have a wide shot already, but I’d like to shoot something tight as they come up the ramp, so I can change it up later on.”
A moment of ominous silence passed as Tychus sought to control his temper and failed. “Are you stupid?” he demanded angrily. “Or crazy? No, you fekkin’ asshole, I won’t unload the troops! Now get outta my face.”
Speer had been on the receiving end of the sergeant’s wrath before and had a very thick skin. “Okay,” he replied cheerfully. “How ’bout a quick sound bite then?”
Tychus opened his mouth to release a blast of profanity that would take the finish off Speer’s armor, but the reporter was already backing away. “Just kidding, Sarge … just kidding,” the civilian said as he turned away from the ramp.
Tychus was still mumbling under his breath as he boarded the Sweetie Pie. Due to the jet packs on their suits, none of the soldiers could sit, but they could lock their joints and relax inside their hardskins during the trip.
Then it was time to give the kind of rousing speech officers like Quigby specialized in. “Okay,” Tychus said. “Remember the plan, watch your six, and don’t shoot Jimmy or any of the POWs. You got any questions? No? I’ll see you on the ground.”
The dropships were in the air five minutes later, running with the lights off as they turned toward the east. That was when the first part of the hour-long flight began. At that point each soldier was a prisoner to his or her hopes and fears as the dropship’s engines whined and the vessel bored a hole through the darkness.
All except for Harnack that is, who had convinced Feek to equip his armor with some unauthorized memory and a closed circuit playback capability. So while his comrades wrestled with their personal demons, Hank was watching a personalized video mix on his HUD and bobbing his head in rhythm to the music.
Tychus found out about the vid mix the same day he discovered Doc had been crab-free for twelve hours, that Ward had tiny pictures of his wife and children affixed along the upper edge of his visor, and that Zander was carrying ten grenades over his authorized load out. Weight a larger man wouldn’t have been able to get away with. What Tychus didn’t know was how many of his platoon would be coming back or why part of him cared.
After what seemed like an eternity the pilot’s deliberately neutral voice came over the comm channel in Tychus’s helmet. “We’re ten minutes from the drop zone … repeat, ten out. Give the KMs my best. Over.”
Rather than remain aboard the Sweetie Pie and supervise the jump, Tychus had granted himself the privilege of being the first person to drop, and therefore the first to land. Because if something went wrong, he figured it would go wrong right away, and he wanted to be there to deal with it.
After the long wait Tychus was conscious of the tension he always felt just prior to combat, but a sense of anticipation as well, since it would feel good to do something for a change. He was eager to find out if Raynor had succeeded in infiltrating the camp, and if he’d been able to warn the POWs. Tychus felt pretty good about the odds; knowing Jim, the poor bastards had been briefed, re-briefed, and alphabetized!