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Chapter Forty-Four
Barto Jezic looked around, just a bit uncomfortably, as he stepped into the spaceport hangar and saw the Manticoran Marines strapping into their equipment. It was a clear, breezy evening, a far cry from the rainy night when the police captain's SWAT teams had foiled the terrorist attack on the Macek Avenue Treasury compound, and he felt more than a little out of his depth.
"Excuse me, Captain," a voice said behind him in an oddly musical foreign accent.
He turned and saw a tall, female noncom. He wasn't familiar with Manticoran rank insignia, but she seemed to have an awful lot of chevrons stenciled on the upper arm of her coal-black powered armor. There was something particularly sleek and deadly looking about that armor, he thought, unable to suppress a pang of envy as he considered what his people could have done with it when Nordbrandt and her murderers began their attacks.
"Yes, Sergeant-?"
"Urizar, Sir. Sergeant Major Hermelinda Urizar. If you happen to hear someone talking about 'the Gu
She smiled, white teeth flashing in a naturally dark complexion which was even more darkly ta
"Captain Barto Jezic, Kornatian National Police." He started to hold out his hand, then paused, glancing at her armor's powered gauntlets, and her smile grew broader.
"'S okay, Captain," she said, extending her own hand. "I've got the governors kicked in. They limit the armor's force levels to what my muscles could do unassisted."
Jezic decided to take her word for it, but it was still hard not to flinch as his hand disappeared into the Sergeant Major's hugely armored paw. To his relief, her grip was no more than firm, and he recovered his hand unmashed.
"I'm supposed to be looking for Captain Kaczmarczyk, Sergeant Major," he said, and she nodded.
"I know, Sir. The Captain asked me to keep an eye out for you. He's over there with Lieutenant Kelso." She waved in the direction of three more Marines-two armored like the sergeant major-standing around a portable holo table in one corner of the hangar. "If you'll come with me, Sir, I'll get you hooked up with him."
"Thank you," he said, but he hesitated a moment, and Urizar cocked an eyebrow at him. "I've got two unmarked vans full of SWAT people parked out on the apron. Your perimeter teams cleared us through, but I didn't know if I could go ahead and bring them inside the hangar. Colonel Basaricek told me she wants a low profile on this entire op, though. I'd like to get them inside, under cover, if I can."
"Not a problem, Sir." The sergeant major reached up and touched a small stud on the side of the boom mike headset she wore. "Central, Hawk-Mike-One-Three." She waited a heartbeat, then said, "Cassidy, Urizar. We've got a couple of unmarked vans on the apron full of KNP SWAT troopers and their equipment." She looked a question at Jezic with the last phrase, and he nodded vigorously. "We need to get them inside and out of sight. Take care of it."
She stood for a moment, obviously listening to a response, then nodded in satisfaction.
"Central, Hawk-Mike-Alpha," she said then. "Skipper? Captain Jezic and his people are here."
One of the armored Marines by the holo table straightened and looked in their direction, then waved for them to join him, and Urizar gri
"Right this way, Captain."
The Kornatian followed her across the hangar which formed the central core of the Manticorans' "Ground One" dirt-side base. It seemed quite crowded with Manticorans. Of course, a lot of that could be because of the amount of space the two pi
Most of the Manticorans Jezic had seen-which wasn't all that many, really, he admitted-were taller than average Kornatians. That probably had something to do with the fact that they got better diets and medical care from childhood, he reflected. But the battle armor added at least another fifteen centimeters to their height, and the armor's arms and legs swelled smoothly with artificial "muscles." Most of the armored Marines were liberally festooned with weaponry and other equipment, but another twenty-odd Marines in armored skinsuits were still checking out their personal gear. That much, at least, was reassuringly familiar, even though the weapons and equipment were far more advanced than anything with which he'd ever trained.
Despite the crowding and bustle, people stepped aside to clear the way for Urizar to escort him to Captain Kaczmarczyk. He saw curiosity in many of the Marines' eyes, but none of the disdain or tolerant contempt he'd been half afraid he might. Watching them prep themselves and their high-tech equipment made him painfully aware of how primitively his own people were equipped in comparison. But if they were aware of it, they let no sign of it show.
"Captain Jezic." The speaker was an exception to the apparent rule that only giants were accepted for service in the Manticoran Marines. He was probably at least a centimeter shorter than Jezic himself-or would have been, if he hadn't been in battle armor-and his brown hair was clipped so short his scalp was clearly visible.
This time Jezic didn't hesitate when the Marine offered his gauntleted hand, and the Manticoran's odd amber-green eyes smiled as they shook.
"I'm Captain Kaczmarczyk. It's good to meet you. I'm assuming they grabbed you with no notice at all and told you to get over here yesterday, so you haven't been briefed in on exactly what's going on?"
"More or less," Jezic agreed, and smiled. He was begi
"Typical," Kaczmarczyk chuckled. "The guy at the sharp end's usually the last one to get the word in our shop, too." He waved a hand at the other armored Marine by the holo table. "This is Lieutenant Angelique Kelso, Captain Jezic. She's First Platoon's CO, and it's her people who are throwing our little party tonight."
Kelso was as tall as Urizar, at least ten or twelve centimeters taller than Kaczmarczyk, with chestnut hair and blue eyes. She shook Jezic's hand with a welcoming smile, and nodded welcomingly to him.
"And this is Lieutenant William Hedges," Kaczmarczyk continued, indicating the dark-haired young man standing beside Kelso, not in battle armor, but in an armored skinsuit. Jezic had to remind himself that all of the people around him were at least second-generation prolong recipients. He himself had received only the first-generation therapies, and even Kaczmarczyk looked as if he could have been the same age as one of Jezic's nephews. Despite his load of weapons and gear, Hedges looked as if he should still be shooting marbles in a schoolyard somewhere.
"Lieutenant Hedges runs Third Platoon, Captain Jezic," Kaczmarczyk told him. "Lieutenant Kelso's borrowing one of his squads for the op; he and his other two squads are taking over base security while we're away. That," he pointed at the battle-armored Marines under the pi
"That's not fair, Skipper," Kelso protested with an absolutely straight face. "You know I didn't have any choice. Michael here can't be trusted with sharp objects."
"Sure, sure," Kaczmarczyk agreed, rolling his eyes at Jezic. Then his expression grew more serious.
"If you'll take a look here, Captain, this is what the terrain actually looks like."
Jezic tried not to look like a little boy with his nose firmly against the candy store window as he studied the exquisitely detailed holo map hovering above the table. The information they had on the footprint of the installation hidden under that seemingly i
"What we're pla
"Her first objective will be to secure or destroy this structure here." He indicated the stubby, camouflaged tower on top of the hill. "We can't tell whether this tower-it looks like more of a tall bunker, really-is just an observation post, or if it mounts heavy weapons. Since we can't tell for certain, we'll go ahead and be sure it's neutralized, just to be on the safe side.
"While one of First Squad's fire teams takes care of that, her second squad will set up over here, covering the one apparent vehicle ramp we've identified. They'll be dropping in heavy-assault configuration, with maximum firepower and minimum endurance. Hopefully, the entire operation will be over very quickly, but we're bringing in backup power units for their armor and weapons in the event that it turns into some kind of siege operation and they have to stay on site for more than a couple of hours. With the plasma ca
"First Squad's second fire team will set up right here." Kaczmarczyk indicated the ventilation system which had been identified. "Its primary mission will be to serve as Lieutenant Kelso's tactical reserve until the rest of us get onto the ground. However, it will also be equipped with Suppressant Three." Jezic looked at him, and he shook his head as if mildly irritated with himself. "Sorry, Captain. That's our current sleepy gas. If the fire team can get onto its objective before the bad guys realize what's going on and switch off their ventilators, it may be able to put the majority of the opposition to sleep, which would really make the rest of the job a lot easier."