“Yeah, right,” said Kelly. He pursed his lips. “Wun, where the hell are we?”
“It does what a ship does,” said the alien. “Therefore I described it as a ship. We will be able to return you to Earth whenever you please now that you have reached here.”
“Yeah, that’s great,” said Kelly, checking his equipment. Looked okay; and if it wasn’t, he’d use the shotgun that weighted his right leg. Hell, he’d tear throats out with his teeth if that was what it took to get the job done.
Or he’d die trying . . . but that would mean he failed, and failure wasn’t acceptable.
“How quick can you get me to Fortress?” the veteran asked, returning to Wun’s initial question but not answering it until he had further data.
“Momentarily, Thomas Kelly,” said the alien, bobbing his head in what was either an Oriental gesture or something indigenous to his own inhuman species.
“Okay,” Kelly said, a place holder while he thought. He met the alien’s eyes, or what passed for eyes in the human simulacrum. “You showed me – the dream, I mean – the balance half of the dumbbell was blown open. If that’s still the case, can you land me at that opening instead of the docking hub?”
“Yes,” Wun said simply, bobbing again.
“You know – ” Kelly began and caught himself. Of course the aliens knew that the lobes were spinning around their common center. If Wun said they could land him there, that meant they would match velocities and land him there.
Now that he was within the alien ‘ship,’ he could understand Wun’s confidence at being able to avoid the radars and X-ray lasers guarding the space station. Previously, he had taken the alien’s word for that simply because there wasn’t a damn thing to be done if Wun was talking through his hat.
The Nazis had probably achieved surprise by approaching in a wholly-unexpected trajectory, claiming to be from the American lunar base when they were finally challenged – and having only a minimal German crew with the Kurdish shock troops aboard the leading saucers, the ones that would take the salvos of Fortress’s close-in defenses. Even so, the highest leaders of the Dienst would have waited well apart from the attack, in Antarctica or on the Moon, until the issue was decided.
“Okay,” said Kelly again, hefting his gear. “Gimme a hand with this. It’s been modified to strap on me, but the suit doesn’t bend so well I can even get the straps over my shoulders myself.”
He was starting to breathe fast. Hell, he’d hyperventilate on oxygen if he didn’t watch out. “And then,” the veteran concluded, “you set me aboard Fortress. And keep your fingers crossed.”
Between the air supply on his back and the weapons pack slung across his chest, Tom Kelly looked like a truckload of bottles mounted on legs. The bulk felt friendly, though, even without the weight that should have accompanied it.
The thing that nobody who directed war movies understood – and why should they? It would have come as news to rear echelons in all the various armies as well – was that the guys at the sharp end carried it all on their backs.
The irreducible minimum for life in a combat zone was water, arms and munitions, and food. In most environments, heavy clothing or shelter had to be factored in as well; exposure in a hilltop trench would kill you just as dead as a bullet.
Helicopters were fine, but they weren’t going to land while you lay baking on a bare hillside traversed by enemy guns; so you carried water in gallons, not quarts, and it was life itself. If you ran out of ammo, they’d cut you apart with split bamboo if that was what they had … so you carried extra bandoliers and extra grenades, and a pistol of your own because the rifle you were issued was going to jam at the worst possible time, no matter who designed it or how hard you tried to keep it clean.
Besides that, you carried a belt of ammo for one of the overburdened machinegunners or a trio of shells for the poor bastard with the mortar tube on his back. You were all in it together; and besides, when the shit hit the fan you were going to need heavy-weapons support.