“Whatever.”
“That’ll be our top speed. What if we hit a piece of dust at that speed?” Galen gripped the armrests of his seat.
“Can’t be,” Tad yawned again. “That’s faster than light. Better check your math.”
Galen relaxed a little after Tad fell asleep. Galen suffered through the sensation of falling when the ship was in zero-G. Tad slept through it. During the one-G deceleration Galen felt better because he knew the ship was slowing down. Tad slept through the deceleration.
When the ship reached the jump point and floated at zero-G, the captain’s voice came over the intercom. “We will be jumping in five minutes. That’s all.”
The thought of jumping through a point made Galen uncomfortable. He gripped the armrests of his chair. Goose bumps covered the backs of his hands. His breathing increased, more rapid but more shallow, and ragged. He began to drool and his legs shivered. Galen’s tension woke Tad.
“Galen, what’s wrong? You look terrified.”
“We’re jump, jumping.”
“Oh.” Tad reached into Galen’s left breast pocket and removed the auto-injector, pulled the protective cap off and felt Galen’s thigh for obstructions. Then he pressed the tip of the auto-injector into the meatiest portion of Galen’s thigh. A needle popped out of the injector and stabbed into Galen’s leg to dispense a powerful sedative.
Galen glared at Tad, nostrils flared, eyes wide, teeth clenched. “Damn it Tad that thing hurts!”
Tad grinned at Galen, waited ten seconds and then removed the needle. Tad started reading the instructions printed on the side of the auto-injector. “Hey, I was supposed to stick this in your ass cheek.”
The four centimeter long needle was covered with blood and there was some blood on the injector body and Tad’s hand. Galen blacked out.
After the ship jumped it burned half a G for two hours and went into orbit around Hobart. Galen woke up after the first hour. Four assault boats docked onto the ship. The steward called names and gave instructions. A mercenary floated out of the ship and boarded a boat each time a name was called.
“Chief Raper, exit two, lower cargo hold on the boat.”
Galen released his seat belt and pulled himself along the aisle to exit two. He launched himself through the hatchway, entered the boat, and pulled himself along the gangways to reach the lower cargo hold. There were five Hornet light tanks in the cargo hold. They were on drop skids fitted with drag chutes. The turret of the Hornet held a light laser cannon paired with a coaxial Gauss machine gun. In the commander’s cupola was another Gauss machine gun and another machine gun protruded from the forward glacis plate. A fusion generator produced electrical power to run the tank and the weapons. Each road wheel had its own electric motor and two powerful electric engines drove the rear drive sprockets. The composite armor of the hull and track skirts was covered with ablative coating, protection from energy weapons.
“End tank, nearest the cargo door,” said the load master. “Get the environmental suit out of the turret, put it on and get in the tank.”
Galen put on the environmental suit but left the helmet off for the moment. They called the environmental suit a ‘Combat Suit’ at the armor academy. It was sturdy enough to protect its wearer from most small-arms fire, cooled and heated the body as needed, and with its reserve of compressed air could serve as a space suit for up to twelve hours. The drawback was encumbrance, but that didn’t matter much to a tanker.
“Button up for briefing,” said the loadmaster’s voice over the cargo bay’s loud speakers. “We’re de-pressurizing the cargo bay in five minutes.”
Galen put on his helmet and lowered himself into the command seat of the tank turret. Occupying the driver’s seat inside the tank was another mercenary wearing his combat suit. The driver looked at Galen and pointed at the right side of his helmet. Galen connected a commo spaghetti cord to his helmet and then slammed the turret hatch closed.
“Chief, I’m Sergeant Boggs, your driver.” Boggs’ voice sounded flat through the intercom.
“Glad to meet you.” Galen attached the air hose and power cord to his suit.
“Power up, Chief.”
Galen turned on the turret system main power. The Panzer Brigade regimental crest was displayed on the main status screen. Then a topographical map showed an open plain with only a couple of contour lines running across it diagonally.
A stern male voice came over the intercom. “Gentlemen, they are here,” a sloppy circle drew itself on the map, “We will hit them from here,” a sloppy arrow drew itself from left to right, stopping in the center of the sloppy circle, “and God help their sorry souls. They know we’re coming, know what we have, and they’ll fight because that’s what they do.”
The map was replaced with the face of a Master Sergeant not wearing his helmet. His hair was black, oily and pulled back into a pony tail. His eyes were deep brown, almost black. They stared, the pupils moving in a tiny horizontal figure-eight pattern. The chin was covered in a ragged sandy brown beard and a thick moustache covered the upper lip. The bottom lip was thin. Yellow bottom teeth were visible when the Master Sergeant spoke.
“We’ll kick the guts out of them, kill them all, because nobody leaves Hobart until they’re all dead. We have to. We shot up all their ships and boats. The only way they’ll get off that rock is by taking one of our ships. We don’t take chances like that. We’ll skid-drop off the boat, hit the ground running and smash the objective. There’s no extraction until they’re all dead. Get down there and kill them all. You can do that for me, can’t you?”
Several voices came over the intercom almost in unison, “Check.” The situation map came back on the screen. The sloppy circle and arrow were still there.
“Chief?” it was Sergeant Boggs.
“Yes.”
“You do know you’re the platoon leader?”
“I do now.”
“Just keep two of your tanks on your left, two on your right and everything will go fine.”
“The other tank commanders know that?”
“Yeah, they’ve done this sort of thing before.”
Galen turned on his platoon commo net. “This is Chief Raper, your platoon leader. My driver informs me you have done this sort of thing before. That means you’ll damn sure do it right. Anything less is unsat.”
Sergeant Boggs shook his head. Galen kicked the back of his helmet.
“That goes for you, too.”
The boat detached from the ship and fell from orbit. It circled the planet once before entering the atmosphere and then came down at a steep angle for fifteen minutes. It leveled off at five hundred meters above Hobart’s ocean. After it flew to the shore line the assault boat slowed to a hundred and twenty kilometers an hour. The rear cargo hatch opened inward, folding into the boat’s overhead. The boat dropped down to just two meters elevation. Galen’s tank pallet slid to the rear of the cargo deck. The drag chute deployed from the pallet and pulled the tank off the assault boat.
Galen braced himself for the landing. The pallet slid onto the ground, the straps holding the tank onto the pallet broke, and Sergeant Boggs drove at full throttle. The impact shoved him forward, his safety harness holding him in his seat. His helmet clacked against the weapons control panel. Galen’s tank was cruising across the flat, barren landscape at top speed behind the assault boat. The four other tanks of his platoon skid-dropped in front of him and then maneuvered to get on line, two on the left and two on the right.
Galen switched to broadcast on platoon push. “Status?”
“Three two, roger out.”
“Three one, roger out.”
“Three four, roger out.”