“Sir, if Morgan hasn’t taken out the links from the snake alternate command center—”
“I know. But her report indicated she had already done the work on that and only needed to activate the bypasses. We have to assume she succeeded. Once you get down, take charge of sending scouts out to check buildings outside of our perimeter. The ground forces down there have had plenty of warning that we were coming, and plenty of time to dig in at their base, but they might have left teams outside it to harass us.”
“Yes, sir. I regret that I proposed this operation, General. There were obviously aspects to the situation that I was not sufficiently aware of.”
So Malin did feel some guilt, though even now expressing it with cold formality rather than a heated statement of regret. “That’s not important at the moment. What matters is frustrating whatever plans Haris has and finding out whatever other surprises exist before they find us. Focus on that.”
“Yes, sir.” This time Malin’s voice clearly conveyed a determination to make up for his error.
Drakon ended the call to Malin, then took one more long look at his display before issuing the next order. He checked the consolidated status reports of the shuttles and the companies making up the two brigades. “Colonel Gaiene, Colonel Kai. Are you ready to go?”
“Yes, sir,” both replied.
He called the aerospace commander of the shuttles. “Major Barnes, are all shuttles ready to land the first wave?”
“Ready, sir,” she said.
“Kommodor Marphissa, I’m beginning the assault. Good luck.”
“Good luck to you, General,” the Kommodor answered. “We are unable to precisely evaluate the results of the bombardment of the snake headquarters complex due to the dust and debris masking our sensors, but the complex is assessed to have been totally destroyed.” She was young enough and inexperienced enough for her worries to sound in her voice but had spent enough time in command not to extend the farewell with platitudes or meaningless promises.
“Thanks,” Drakon said. “We’ll finish the job.”
He switched from the external command circuit for talking to the warships and back to the internal circuit tying together every unit under his command. “All units,” Drakon said. “Commence assault.”
He boarded the shuttle, locked one armored fist onto the brace that would hold him in place, watched the ramp seal, then felt the shuttle lurch and fall. All around, other shuttles dropped off from the freighters carrying them and dove toward the surface, firing chaff barrages ahead of them as they fell.
Any landing operation against opposition was a matter of tight guts, pounding hearts, and hope. Hope that your shuttle would make it to the surface without being hit, hope that you would get off the shuttle without being hit, hope that you would find cover without being hit, hope that the shuttle had dropped you in the right place and you weren’t surrounded by enemies, hope that somehow you would survive this whole mess and come out in one piece on the winning side.
Drakon felt the shuttle he was riding rock several times from near misses as it dropped. He called up a display showing the faces of all the soldiers in the shuttle with him, stacked across his helmet’s faceplate like figures on playing cards. “They’re lousy shots,” he told the soldiers, trying to put the best face he could on the situation.
Most of the soldiers smiled, though nerves made a lot of the smiles resemble grimaces. “It’s pretty hot down there, General,” one offered.
“Not nearly as hot as some places I’ve been,” Drakon said. He steadied himself as the shuttle jolted again. The pilots driving these birds were veterans of the aerospace forces, and despite the hideous losses often sustained in landings against opposition, a fair number of the pilots had made drops in the face of determined enemy fire more than once. They were pushing their experience and their birds to the limits.
Drakon’s shuttle was coming down so quickly that his armored boots threatened to rise off the deck of the troop compartment. Another small virtual window on his helmet display showed the view outside, which right now consisted of sky littered with all of the active and passive countermeasures, collectively called chaff, that the shuttles had fired down into the atmosphere before descending. Mixed in with the chaff was the dust and fine debris that had in some cases risen high in the atmosphere from the recent bombardment of the snake headquarters complex only thirty kilometers from where Drakon’s troops were landing. All of that junk did a pretty decent job of confusing and blinding sensors on the ground, which was the only reason any of the shuttles had survived even this far into their drops to the surface. The surface defenses were probably firing on manual aiming, drastically reducing their chances of a hit, but some of their shots were coming uncomfortably close. “Remember the drill when we hit dirt. Most of you have done this before. Anyone who hasn’t, you’re just going to have to trust me.”
That got some laughs, even from the newer soldiers who had joined Drakon’s division after the exile to Midway. Joking with the troops wasn’t something the average Syndicate CEO did, but Drakon believed that the fact that he had rarely acted like the average Syndicate CEO had been one of the things that had earned the loyalty of these soldiers. The average Syndicate CEO wouldn’t have been riding in this shuttle, going down with the troops charged with carrying out his plan, sharing their fate.
Of course, he hadn’t had much real choice. The freighters would be sitting ducks for the Syndicate warships unless that Kommodor could pull off a miracle. At least on the surface, he would have a chance to shoot back at the Syndicate.
The red lights on their helmet displays changed to yellow, warning that the ground was coming up fast. “Brace yourselves!” Drakon ordered. “They’re going to brake hard!”
The words had barely left his mouth before g-forces slammed his armored boots flat to the deck. Drakon grunted as his body tried to compact onto the lower portions of his armor, painfully emphasizing that Syndicate armor designs did not incorporate nearly enough cushioning. His internal organs felt like they were compressing into his waist and legs, too, but he endured it, knowing it would not last.
After so many years of war and so many years laboring under the arbitrary, cruel, and profit-driven Syndicate, Drakon believed that was half the trick to remaining sane. Knowing that nothing would last, that no matter how bad things got, sooner or later they would either get better or possibly worse, but at least different.
The shuttle grounded hard enough to jar Drakon’s teeth even through the armor, the ramp dropping at almost the same instant. “Out!” he yelled, leaping out onto the surface of Ulindi’s primary inhabited world.
He let one foot land, using it to propel himself forward and down toward a building that loomed close by. The door was locked, but Drakon in his heavy battle armor smashed through it as if it were made of tinfoil. That had been a safe bet since the Syndicate Internal Security Service forbade nonofficial buildings from having doors strong enough to withstand forced entry. The rule made it a lot easier for the snakes to get into places, but also for attacking soldiers. Drakon rolled onto the floor inside, barely noting the office furnishings being hurled aside by the impacts with his armor, then came to his feet, weapon questing for targets.
Other soldiers from the shuttle came diving through the door, others through two nearby windows, and several more through the wall. Drakon knew the building could handle the abuse. Like most modern structures, it was built with a strong frame that could flex under stress and curtain walls over and inside the frame that also had some ability to absorb stress and vibration. Punching holes in the curtain walls didn’t weaken the structure much.