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The .50 caliber bullet punched through the light metal of the saucer and into its energy bottle. The round actually missed the stabilization module, but the dynamic shock wave of its passage transferred thousands of joules of energy through the matrix. Before the bullet had passed fully through the crystalline matrix the bonds had begun to shatter and release their massive energy in an uncontrolled explosion rivaling an antimatter charge.
The blast flipped the saucer into the air and the mass of the God King saucer disappeared in the bright white flash. The shock wave slapped the sergeant major and Trapp to the ground, tossed Richards through the air like a flapjack and stu
After a moment Trapp and Mosovich stumbled to their feet, but Richards lay with his head flopped oddly to one side. Jake took one look at him, picked up Martine's sacks and his Street Sweeper then ran for the jungle.
20
Planetary Transport Class Maruk,
N-Space Transit Terra-Diess
1147 GMT March 14th, 2002 AD
Mike was lifting weights in a tiny gym tucked away between the number eighteen cargo hold and the gamma zone environmental spaces when his AID chirped, "You're requested to report to General Houseman at your earliest convenience."
This request involved a number of problems. The first was their relative location. There were four troopships in the Expeditionary Force flotilla. One was occupied entirely by the Chinese divisions. Two had Allied Expeditionary Force, NATO units, U.S. III Corp, German, English, Dutch, Japanese and French. The last was filled with a mixed bag of Russian and Third World troops, southeast Asian, African and South American. With the exception of the NATO troops, the contingents were kept strictly segregated. Besides avoiding the cultural conflicts that would inevitably arise, this permitted the use of other nations' forces when riots broke out within a force.
For two months troops, mostly ill-prepared and trained, had been left in an interstellar limbo. There was ample horizontal room, but the low ceilings designed for Indowy and lack of wind, sun and space caused the troops to become stir-crazy even once the air, food and light problems were fixed. With no communication in or out while in fold space the units brooded into explosion. Once in the NATO ships and four times on the mixed ship, local arguments had gotten out of hand.
The problem was that General Houseman, the III Corp and American contingent commander, spent time on both the Maruk, the ship Lieutenant O'Neal was on and the Sorduk, the other ship with NATO forces, as the ships dropped in and out of hyperspatial anomalies. His office and the bulk of III Corp were on the Maruk, but his commander, General Sir Walter Arnold, British Army, was on the Sorduk.
"Where is the general?" he asked his AID, toweling off while stumping ponderously to the manual gravity controls.
"General Houseman is in his office, Alpha Quad, ring five, deck A, right abaft NATO Senior Officers' Quarters."
Made sense, the general wouldn't expect him to come to the Sorduk without any warning. Second problem: when a Lieutenant General tells a First Lieutenant "at your earliest convenience" he means "right damn now." But showing up in sweat-soaked PT uniform is Unacceptable Attire. Oh, well. He'd have to take time to change, but he was also about four kilometers away. This was going to be interesting.
"Please send a message to the general that I am unavoidably detained and will not be able to reach his location for a minimum of . . . thirty minutes."
Third and insurmountable problem: He didn't have the right uniform. All he brought were Fleet Strike uniforms and all the U.S. units were wearing regular Army uniforms: BDUs or Greens as appropriate. Therefore, he could show up in silks, daily work uniform, or blues, dress uniform.
"What's the uniform of the day for III Corp headquarters perso
"BDUs." Battle dress uniform, regular camouflage. It would be replaced, had been in Mike's case, by silks, but the two uniforms could not be more different. Therefore, blues might even be less conspicuous; it might be mistaken for some other country's dress uniform.
The Fleet Strike uniform design team had really thrown caution to the wind with the dress uniform. The color was a deep cobalt blue with, in officer's case, thin piping at the seams in the color of the officer's branch, in O'Neal's case light blue for infantry. The piping was thermally activated and swirled with movement as the leg contacted the edge. The tunic was collarless without lapels and pressure sealed on the left side. It was a damn showy and conspicuous uniform, which militated against it. Silks it was.
Twenty-seven minutes later First Lieutenant Michael O'Neal in gray silks and Terra blue beret, entered the outer office of the Commander, United States Ground Forces, Diess Expeditionary Force. Installed in the outer office, Cerberus at the gates, was a thick-set command sergeant major who looked as if he last smiled in 1968. Mike could have sworn he was fighting off a grin at Mike's attire.
Lieutenant O'Neal had traveled four kilometers, washed, shaved and changed in those twenty-seven minutes. It was only possible because he brought his suit to the gym. Instead of using normal hallways he had passed through a series of zero gee and unpressurized holds at speeds that still had him shaking. The suit's semibiotic liner had scavenged his sweat and dirt and consumed the stubble on his face.
When he got into his cabin it was only necessary to pop out of the suit and change. Unfortunately this last was severely inhibited by the suit. Although the suit was no more bulky than a fat man, and a short one at that, it had to be leaned against the wall and was immobile until he put it back on. To put on his trousers in the cramped cubicle it was necessary to straddle the suit's leg and more or less bounce up and down. Once the process was done it left only an undignified rush through the junior officers' quarters "up-country" to the senior levels.
The sergeant major expressionlessly inspected the uniform then stood and walked to the i
"Send him in, Sergeant Major, by all means," said an affable voice. O'Neal heard the distinct sound of a sheaf of papers hitting others, as when a folder is tossed onto an overloaded desk.
The sergeant major stood aside, gestured for the lieutenant to enter and closed the door after him. Only with the door safely closed did he, without a change in expression, snort several times in laughter.
The general had much in common, physically, with his sergeant major. Both had stocky builds of medium height, round florid faces and thi
"Lieutenant O'Neal, reporting as ordered," said Mike. Like all junior officers he was categorizing his sins and trying to decide which one had come to the general's attention. However, unlike most he had ample experience with flag officers so he was less intimidated than many would have been.
The general waved a hand at his forehead and said, "At ease, Lieutenant, as a matter of fact, grab a chair. Coffee?" The general grabbed his own mug and reached for a Westbend coffee maker hardwired into the wall.
"Yes, sir, thank you." Mike paused. "Did the Indowy wire that for you, sir?"