Tendrils of burning metal trailed from the edges of the hologram where glare hadn’t blanked the camera. Then the entire picture went dead.
“There’s a magazine in middle of the installation—” Kowacs said, continuing with the briefing notes assembled from panicked, scrappy messages received in orbit after the landing craft and its booster link were lost.
The light banks in the Bonnie Parker’s bay went out. The yellow emergency system came on and the forward doors, port and starboard, started to clam-shell upward. They opened about half a meter, enough to let a frigid, high-altitude wind scream and blast the Marines. Then they jammed.
Somebody started to pray in Kowacs’ earphones. Because the system was locked for the briefing, the voice had to be one of the platoon leaders he’d known for years—but he didn’t recognize it.
“—in which many of the friendlies have holed up awaiting rescue,” Kowacs continued as if his palms weren’t wet and icy, as if part of his mind didn’t wish a flash like the one that ate the Jeffersonian craft would end this.
Sergeant Bradley slipped between the lines of Marines, patted one on the shoulder. The high-pitched prayers stopped in mid-syllable. It didn’t matter who it’d been, didn’t matter at all.
For a moment, Kowacs had thought it might be his own voice.
“We’ll land—” he began, speaking louder instinctively though he knew the system would compensate for the wind-rush by raising the gain in the Headhunters’ earphones.
The Bonnie Parker’s emergency lighting flicked out, then back. The starboard rear door, the one which the Weapons Platoon faced, cycled upward without stopping.
“Cockpit to cargo,” said the PA system in O’Hara’s voice. If O’Hara was speaking, it meant the command pilot had her hands full.
Or was dead.
“Rig to jump in sixty seconds. I say again, rig to jump.”
“Headhunter command to cockpit,” Kowacs said, tripping his helmet’s liaison channel. The four platoon leaders had stepped out of line without needing the orders there was no time to give, checking their units’ newer members who might never have made a wire-discharge jump in combat. “Will we be in guidance range of the target?”
There was a clatter as Weapons Platoon jettisoned its belt-fed plasma weapons and their ammo drums out the hatchway. The guns were too heavy to be supported by the emergency wire-discharge packs that were all the Headhunters had available now.
“That’s a rog, Headhunter,” O’Hara bellowed, his words broken either by static or by the sound of an electrical fire in the cockpit. “Some of you, at least. But you’ll need to find your own way home.”
First and Third Platoons were reporting ready in the holographic heads-up display in front of Kowacs’ eyes. The green dot for Weapons appeared as he switched back to the unit push and said, “We’ve got one door so we’ll jump by sticks, Delta first, then Gamma—”
Second Platoon winded READY but Kowacs continued with what he’d intended to say, “—then Alpha, last Beta. Your helmets have the coordinates downloaded. They’ll guide to the intended landing zone—”
“Jump!” screamed the PA system. “Jump, damn you!”
“Go!” said Kowacs.
Weapons Platoon cleared the doorway, one Marine holding back a micro-second until Bradley shoved him from behind. Third Platoon was already pushing into position from the opposite side of the bay, hunched forms fumbling with the reels of wire attached to their equipment harness.
Nobody’d expected to jump until seconds ago. They’d been ready to throw their jump gear away as soon as the Bonnie Parker touched down. Now they realized that if the reel unhooked, they’d freefall while the thirty-meter wire floated in the air until its powerpack could no longer polarize the charges at its opposite ends.
“Gamma, go!” snapped Lieutenant Mandricard, and Third Platoon was in the air before Kowacs had thought they were ready. A couple of the men were a step behind the others. They dived for the opening, so graceless and massive in their loads of combat equipment that they looked like pianos tipping over a balcony.
He only hoped they’d get their tumbling under control before the dischargers deployed. If two wires fouled, their charges shorted and—
“Alpha—” ordered Lieutenant Seeley over the command net. She was muscling to the hatch one of her Marines who’d stumbled when the Bonnie Parker bucked; as the ship did again, making the whole platoon wobble like ten-pins but without falling until Seeley completed, “—go!”