He popped back in and looked at Serris, hoping he could get this across.
“HANG ON,” he yelled, suiting words to actions by grabbing a stanchion by the door. “WE’RE DROPPING!” He made a motion with his hand pointed down, like an aircraft in a dive.
Serris looked blank for a moment then nodded, grabbing at one of the folded up seats with the hand not holding a static line and shouting to the guy behind him.
“Dreizig seconds!” the loadmaster shouted.
“THIRTY SECONDS!” Guerrin screamed. “HOLD THE FUCK ON!”
Whether the word got back or not, Guerrin saw virtually everyone grabbing something just before the nose of the bird tipped over. And it was a dive, a hard one.
“HOOOOOOOO-WAAAAAAAH!”
The bird rang with the cry and Guerrin had to grin, even with what felt like his entire last month’s meals coming up in his throat. He could feel his feet half leaving the ground. The pilots were really having fun, that was for sure. Oh, hell, face it, they were all having fun. Even if this was an admin drop it felt like combat, coming in in a “friendly nation’s” bird, nose down and screaming at the DZ. It felt fucking hot.
Guerrin leaned out and he could see they were right on the DZ. Still diving.
“Zehn Sekunden!”
“Serris!” he shouted at the lead jumper. “Stand in the door!”
Fuck the new regs. The way they were maneuvering Serris couldn’t just stand up. He was going to be lucky to make it to the door without sprawling on his face. He needed something to hang onto and the old way, standing in the door, grabbing the edges, was going to work better.
Guerrin took another look out and could see they were flashing over some small town stuck in a tiny valley. Just out the door, practically on the same level as they were jumping, was some sort of castle. Fucking cool.
He grabbed Serris’ hand and practically dragged him to the door, slapping the hand onto the trailing edge as the bird leveled out, hard. Just as it did, the light flashed green.
“GO!”
Serris bailed followed by the stick but Guerrin kept his eyes out the door, keeping count at the same time. There were mountains in their way, coming up fast. He started to raise a hand and then did so as the red light came on.
“HANG ON!” he screamed, grabbing the new lead jumper’s risers as the plane banked up. The jumper, a sergeant from third platoon, lurched into him but stayed on his feet.
“Stand by!” Guerrin called, pointing to the stanchion on the forward side of the bird’s troop door and shoving the sergeant to it. There was no way he could just stand in the middle of the open area, any more than Serris could have.
Sixteen out on his side. They might get more on the second pass. Maybe less, probably more. Thirty-two jumpers, including himself, on his side, just like a Herc. One more pass, maybe two. He had to wait for the assistant JM to go. Probably no way he’d make it out on the second pass.
He’d considered having one of the, many, other qualified jumpmasters in the unit cover the drop. Technically he should have been the first guy on the ground. But the situation on the ground, according to everyone, was pretty together. He had been more worried about the quality of drop support. Thus the fact that he’d be the last guy out.
The bird had nosed up then banked, hard. The bank was right so he was looking at sky but looking through the other door, over his shoulder, it was apparent that the pilots were staying pretty low. Low enough that you could practically count the damned pine needles. He’d have been happier with a little more AGL.
Bank, level out, bank another of those screaming dives and…
“GREEN LIGHT! GO!”
The Rangers had been able to count, too. He looked over at the assistant JM and shrugged and nodded to him. Up to him to decide if he could make it out on this chalk.
The assistant, Sergeant First Class Jose J Clavell, the Third Platoon platoon sergeant, just nodded and looked back out the door.
Last jumper on Guerrin’s side and he had… a little room. Looking over his shoulder Clavell was… gone.
“Tchuss!” he shouted at the Ukrainian load-master as he threw himself out the door, red light and all. The reason for the red light was clear since the bird lurched upwards just as he was clearing it.
He’d just started to count and then felt the one hardest separation he’d ever felt in his life. The ascending bird had practically ripped his chute cover off. He felt the chute open, though, and looking up he had a good canopy. Whew!
Looking down, though…
“Fuck,” he muttered. Drop altitude was supposed to have been eight hundred feet, above ground level. And it probably had been. But going out late he’d ended up exiting over a damned at least two hundred foot ridge, covered in trees. This was really gonna suck…
First Sergeant Kwan hit the ground like a sack of shit, as always. He could instruct on a proper PLF, parachute landing fall, and had as a Black Hat in the Jump School in Benning. But he always hit like a sack of shit himself and so far, so good. He’d sustained injuries in jumps but only in cases where a good PLF wouldn’t have mattered worth a damn. Like that one time he hit a fence-post covered in barb-wire. That had really sucked.
This time, though, he could tell it was a good hit. Nice spot. Plowed field. Comfy.
He popped a riser, hit the quick release on his harness and rolled to his feet, scanning the area. No yells for medic, which was a very good sign. He was usually about the last guy down in a drop. If nobody was screaming for a medic it meant no major injuries.
He started to gather his chute and then paused as, through a break in one of the stone fences he saw a cluster of locals headed his way. Women locals by the skirts and blouses, carrying sacks just about the size to pack a chute in.
He stood up and began bundling the chute as the women spread out, one or two towards each jumper. None of them were armed, so he didn’t see a security situation. He wasn’t sure about swarming Rangers with… damn they were good looking! women just after a jump, though.
“His” gal had reached him by the time he had the chute bundled, though, so there was no stopping it now.
“We take,” the lady said in heavily accented English. “Clean, pack, give back. You go. Duty.” She pointed towards a cluster of houses to the south. That was the designated assembly area.
“Okay,” Kwan said, dubiously. “Take care of it. That’s US Government property.”
“Clean, pack, give back,” the gal repeated, grinning. “You go. Duty. Beer.”
“Yeah,” the First Sergeant said, suddenly alarmed. “I’d better get going.” They had better not be serving his Rangers beer already.
Guerrin swung back and forth, kicking his feet like a kid on a swing and working out the pain in his left arm. He’d taken a hell of a bang coming down through the branches of this… oak by the look of it. But the canopy had caught on the upper part of the tree, leaving him dangling about twenty feet off the ground. There was a procedure to get down but, given that the ground was covered in scrub and rocks, he was already banged up and this was a training jump, he was planning on staying here til somebody came by with a ladder.