And so it went until Santana felt the pod start to move, followed by a sudden bout of nausea as the module fell clear of the argrav fi?eld, and the steering jets fi?red. Because there were thousands of pieces of space junk circling Jericho, the offi?cer was fairly confi?dent that the pods would be lost in among them. But if the Ramanthians took issue with the sudden appearance of twenty-one additional blips on their tracking screens, then the Solar Eclipse’s pilot would admit to dumping garbage and accept the inevitable tongue-lashing. Then, having delivered a cargo of delicacies that the Ramanthian command structure hadn’t ordered but was unlikely to refuse, the freighter would depart.
In the meantime the computer-guided drop pods were following trajectories calculated to reinforce the impression that they, like the hundreds of other objects that entered the atmosphere each day, were about to burn up. Santana felt the pod begin to vibrate, and even though he couldn’t see the three-thousand-degree envelope of plasma fl?owing around him, he knew it was trying to fi?nd a way in through the capsule’s thermal protection system. And the offi?cer could feel the heat start to build up inside the pod as the vehicle shook violently. The legionnaire chinned the intercom. “Snyder? How are you doing?”
“I was taking a nap,” the cyborg lied. “Until you woke me up that is.”
Santana laughed. “Sorry about that. . . . Go back to sleep.”
And, had such a thing been possible, the next few minutes would have been the time to try. Because once the pod lost a suffi?cient amount of altitude, parachutes were deployed, and Santana felt a distinct jerk as the vehicle slowed. That was followed by a gentle swaying motion—
and the sure knowledge that they would be on the ground soon.
However, pod Bravo Two-Four, which carried bio bod Jamie Ott, and cyborg Bindi Jasper was in trouble. Both legionnaires felt a jerk, followed by continued free fall, as a buzzer began to sound. The NAVCOMP triggered the reserve chute, which turned into a streamer, as the capsule continued its plunge toward the jungle below. Ott took over at that point, fi?red all of the drop pod’s retros, and was still punching buttons as the vehicle hit the ground. There was no explosion, but the impact crater was fi?fty feet across, and at least fi?fteen feet deep.
But the jungle had covered other secrets over the ages, thousands of them, and the force of the impact brought long dormant seeds to the surface, where the sunlight could fi?nd them. And even before the wreckage could cool, vines had already begun their slow-motion advance in from the margins of the newly created clearing to reclaim what was rightfully theirs.
The sudden loss of Ott and Jasper was immediately visible to the entire team as the Integrated Tactical Command (ITC) system threw a revised TO chart up for the legionnaires to see. But there was no time to mourn for lost comrades as their pods hit the jungle’s topmost canopy of vegetation, where they paused for a fraction of a second before crashing through a second layer of foliage to land on whatever lay below. Which in Santana’s case was soft loam.
The capsule bounced once, landed at something of an angle, and blew itself apart. Santana fell free, rolled into the shelter offered by a fallen tree, and brought his assault rifl?e up. Snyder broke out of what remained of the shell, shook off some loose pieces, and began to scan. If there was some sort of threat in the immediate area, the cyborg would fi?nd it.
A variety of jungle smells fi?lled the legionnaire’s nostrils as he came to his feet and eyeballed the data provided by the ITC. The good news was that there was no sign that a Ramanthian reaction force was on the way to intercept them, and all of the surviving pods had landed safely. The bad news was that Team Zebra was spread out along a twenty-mile-long axis. But DeCosta had a plan—which the impatient offi?cer was quick to implement. “This is Zebra Six. . . . All team members will form on Bravo Six and myself. And let’s fi?nd those RAVs. . . . We’re going to need them. Over and out.”
DeCosta’s reasoning was sound as Santana could see on his HUD. Because Bravo Six, which was to say Farnsworth, was closest to the coordinates where the POWs were being held. So it made sense for both the platoon leader and those fi?re teams closest to him to remain stationary, while the rest of the team hurried to catch up. The mission clock was running, and there was no way to shut it off.
Now that Santana had a clear mental picture of how the company was deployed, it was time to look at the needs of his own platoon, and fi?gure out how to link up with his legionnaires. Since Gomez and the rest of the fi?rst squad were north of his position, and therefore closer to the fi?nal objective, the platoon leader decided to remain stationary while he waited for Sergeant Ibo-Da and his squad to arrive from the south.
A decision that was further justifi?ed by the fact that according to the topo map projected on the inside surface of the offi?cer’s face shield, one of the RAVs was located only a half mile away. Which meant that he and Snyder could secure the robot while the second squad caught up. Having dragged the debris into the jungle and concealed it as best he could, Santana helped Snyder clamp the auxiliary supply module to her chest. With that accomplished, Santana sent two succinct radio messages. One to DeCosta, letting the major know what he planned to do, and the other to his squad leaders.
Then it was time to climb up onto Snyder’s back and strap in. The T-2 could “see” the RAV on the topo map superimposed over her electronic vision, so there was no need for the bio bod to do anything other than duck branches and become more familiar with his environment as the cyborg carried him through the jungle. By that time the local residents had recovered from the violent manner in which the alien invaders had crashed through the upper regions of their largely green universe and were busy screeching, howling, and chittering at the ten-foot-tall, two-headed monster lumbering through their forest.
Santana leaned backwards and let the harness accept his weight as he looked up through the sun-dappled foliage to patches of blue sky. Every once in a while it was possible to catch a glimpse of sleek bodies as they jumped from branch to branch and gibbered at each other.
Water splashed up and away from Snyder’s blocky feet as she forded a shallow stream, made her way up the opposite bank, and followed a game trail into the forest. The RAV was right where it was supposed to be, standing near the remains of its pod, when the T-2 and bio bod entered the newly created clearing. The robot consisted of two eight-foot-long sections linked by an accordion-style joint and supported by four articulated legs. Though not intended for offensive purposes, each RAV was equipped with two forward-facing machine guns and a grenade launcher. Which, when integrated into a defensive perimeter, could be quite useful in repelling ground attacks. Having dismounted, and with the T-2 there to provide security, Santana gathered the pieces of the RAV’s specially designed pod together and carried them over to a natural depression, where he did what he could to hide them without killing any of the vegetation. And that was when the offi?cer came across an empty meal pak with Ramanthian script on it, plus more than two dozen pieces of broken shell, which suggested that whatever had once been inside the egg had hatched. That was interesting because the legionnaire had read all of Batkin’s reports at least three times, and therefore knew that thousands, if not millions of Ramanthian tricentennial eggs, had been transported to Jericho and “planted” by specially trained teams of civilians.
A fi?rst, insofar as the experts knew, since it was believed that all of the previous megahatchings had taken place on Hive, where they had been responsible for social upheaval, prolonged warfare, and extended famines. Problems the Queen and her advisors were trying to avoid this time around. Santana put both the empty meal pak and a fragment of eggshell in his backpack and made a mental note to share both the artifacts and his conclusions with DeCosta. Sergeant Ibo-Da and the rest of his squad arrived shortly thereafter. Good-natured insults fl?ew back and forth between the cyborgs, and Snyder gave as good as she got as the combined force left the clearing. Darby and Nacky had the point, followed by Santana on Snyder, the RAV, Shootstraight on Ichiyama, and Ibo-Da on Kappa. The last two had the drag position, which meant Kappa had to walk backwards much of the time in an effort to protect the column’s six.