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“A good drop-ship pilot can thread a needle with a Wasp. A great drop-ship pilot can do it with a fully loaded ship while under fire, with one engine and half a wing shot off,”
The loops on the front of my battle armor hold a dozen grenades for my rifle’s launcher. Four of them are rubber rounds, two are buckshot rounds, and the remaining six are chemical crowd-control munitions, the kind the military calls “less lethal,” which is technically a true designation. For truth in advertising, the term should be “very slightly less lethal.” They’re filled with a particularly unpleasant chemical agent that will creep through any sort of mask or filter short of sealed battle armor. In Basic, we all had to endure ten seconds of exposure to the riot gas in the chemical warfare
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I pick out a new target, sight my rifle, and shoot. Then again, and again. There’s no shortage of targets out there. I have stopped thinking of them as people. They’re just silhouettes in my gun sight now, one squeeze of the trigger each.
“Listen up, fuckhead,” she says. Her voice is so infused with anger that it comes out as a hoarse growl. “That man over there is one of mine. He dragged me through half a mile of hostile territory. If I ever hear you talking to him again like he’s some green recruit who overstayed his weekend leave, I will tear out your trachea and piss down your neck. Is that understood?”
“Fuck. They’re all gone.” “What’s all gone?” “The pods. They all launched. There’s not a single escape pod left in the hull. The last one launched seven minutes ago.” Halley throws her hands up in an exasperated gesture that looks almost comically understated, considering our circumstances. “Well, isn’t that just fucking awesome.”
We get scrubbed, rinsed, and doused with what seems like a dozen different chemical agents before the ChemWar team lets us put on some fresh uniforms. Even after the decontamination session, the Manitoba’s armed marine guards keep us segregated from the rest of the crew. We are led into a large room that looks like a hastily cleared storage area, and a dozen medical officers and nurses descend upon us to treat our minor scratches and bruises. When they’re finally convinced that none of us will suddenly grow tentacles and devour the rest of the crew, we’re led into yet another room,
