“I did not know.”
On the window for each Marine, Geary could see all of the data that Marine was being shown on his or her helmet display. External pressure readings were dropping rapidly as the shuttles pumped out the air in their passenger decks. As the readings hit zero, the hatches swung open, revealing the shuttle ramps leading downward a short distance before ending against the black nothingness of space. Europa was below them, unable to be seen from this angle. The great bannered spectacle of Jupiter itself was almost directly above and also couldn’t be seen.
“Go,” Gunnery Sergeant Orvis commanded.
The Marines shuffled forward, heading down the ramp, until the first in line reached the end and stepped off with a small leap to get clear. The next followed two seconds later, then the next, then the next, until every Marine was dropping through the very thin wisps of Europa’s atmosphere. Dropping toward the most fearsome place in human-inhabited space.
Some of the Marines looked down as they fell kilometer after kilometer, tipping themselves forward until snarls from Orvis or one of the other Marine sergeants or corporals brought them straight again. On their displays, a small fragment of a sphere marked the surface they were plummeting toward, along with a number helpfully counting down the rapidly diminishing distance to that surface.
The images jerked as the assist jets began kicking in on the Marines, the thrust still gentle, just enough to control the descent. Even though the Marines were all looking straight ahead as they dropped feetfirst, more and more of the edge of Europa’s horizon was appearing within their vision. “How can something so pretty feel so ugly?” one Marine whispered across the comm circuit linking them together.
“Yeah,” another answered. “Like that lance corporal you used to date. What was her name again?”
A chorus of low laughter was cut short by Gunnery Sergeant Orvis. “Stow it! Eyes and heads on the mission!”
“They are nervous,” Commander Nkosi commented. “I recognize that sort of talk. It is comforting to realize you people from the stars are not all that different from us.”
“That’s comforting?” Geary asked.
“Perhaps it should not be,” Nkosi admitted.
Geary had focused his display on the drop zone, so by looking to one side away from the views from the Marine armor, he could see a segment of Europa’s surface, the stealth craft resting on it, and the gently curving lines marking the projected paths of the falling Marines.
“Should we deploy chaff?” Corporal Maya asked Orvis, using the generic term for materials and devices that confused detection and aiming.
“Negative. If they haven’t spotted us, we don’t want to attract their attention, and if they have seen us, we don’t want to advertise that we’re coming in on a combat footing.”
“How could they not see us, Gunny?” a private asked.
“If they’re not looking,” Orvis explained. “Did you apes listen to the predrop brief? The last thing those guys on the surface expect is for us to drop in, so even though we don’t have stealth gear, we might still achieve surprise.”
“What if we don’t?”
“Then I’ll tell the Admiral you were upset about getting shot at and sing you a lullaby to help you sleep when we get back to the ship! Everybody shut up and prep for landing! Weapons tight!”
Geary had kept one eye on the grounded stealth craft, watching for signs that those inside it had spotted the Marines and were preparing to fire. But as the Marines dropped the final kilometer to the surface, their assist jets braking them hard at the last possible moment, no reaction could be seen on the craft.
Watching the stress readings that jumped into red on the helmet display of every Marine, Geary winced in sympathy at the forces they were enduring as the jets labored at full thrust to slow their fall.
“If something goes wrong, will they break through the ice?” Senator Sakai asked.
“No, sir,” Geary said. “The ice sheets are too thick and too hard. If the jets on any of the Marines fail, they will crater on the surface. It will crack the surrounding ice, but not enough to shatter or hole it.” It all sounded so clinical when describing it, as if such a crater would not be the grave marker of a Marine who could not possibly survive such an impact. But he thought they were already past that point, the Marines’ falls slowed enough that they could survive the impact if their jets failed now.
Orvis hit the ice hard enough to create some fine cracks under his armored boots. The gunnery sergeant tottered on his feet, facing the stealth craft, his weapon aimed and ready. He slid out his right foot to maintain his balance instead of following the normal practice of bending into a roll that would have ended up with him lying prone on the ice in a less exposed position. “Everybody remember to stay on your feet and minimize contact with the surface!”
All around him, the rest of the platoon landed in a staggered series of similar wobbly stances. None fell even though two had to take a few rushed steps to keep from losing their balance. Europa’s extremely thin atmosphere could not generate any winds or resistance capable of pushing the Marines off their trajectories, so they had landed in almost perfect alignment, forming two bent lines around the sides of the craft.
Geary could see dozens of different views of the scene, each from one of the Marines. On the side with the ridge, the Marines were slightly higher and had a marginally different view of the stealth craft, but, otherwise, the views were similar. The surface ice of Europa here was darkened by minerals to a light khaki color and scored by low ridges and lines. The stealth craft had been brought to rest near a low, curving ridge that offered as much cover as could be found anywhere on the surface. It was small in relation to Dauntless, only perhaps three times the size of one of the battle cruiser’s shuttles. From this close, however, the craft was impossible to miss, a smooth, curving shape rising above the skyline. The sky itself was as black as space, the atmosphere being too thin to catch sunlight, but the landscape was eerily lit by the faint light of Sol and the light reflected from the huge many-banded globe of Jupiter that dominated the view above this side of Europa.
“Move out!” The last Marine had barely come to a stop when Orvis called out the command and began running toward the spacecraft, along with half of the other Marines on each side. He and the others covered about a third of the distance to the craft, then stopped, weapons aimed and ready. Behind them, the other half of the platoon dodged forward, running through the area where their comrades now stood, covering the charge.
The sensors on the Marines’ combat armor worked automatically and efficiently, scanning the spacecraft and identifying even subtle surface features. On the Marines’ helmet displays, markers sprang to life over the image of the ship, designating various kinds of sensors, a few weapons designed for space combat, and maneuvering thrusters.
“Admiral, either we’ve achieved surprise, or they’re waiting for us in there,” Orvis reported.
Geary nodded from habit even though the gesture couldn’t be seen by the Marine sergeant. “Make sure they can’t lift. We can’t afford to have them run.”
“Yes, sir. Second Squad, Fourth Squad,” Orvis called out as he dashed forward again. “Attack plan Alpha. Take out all assigned targets.”
Ten Marines on one side of the ship halted, their weapons steadying before opening fire, as did ten Marines on the other side. The spacecraft’s maneuvering thrusters were knocked out in a rapid series of shots that crippled the spacecraft’s ability to control its movement if it tried to lift. Shoulder-fired weapons sent projectiles into the craft’s single main propulsion unit at the aft end, doing enough damage to the external components to render the drive useless but not enough harm to threaten catastrophic failure of the drive components inside the hull.