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effortless movements of his external prosthesis, he swung the load up
into the dropship's belly. Clicks and clangs sounded from within as the
vessel accepted the offering and automatically secured the missiles in
place. Spunkmeyer retreated in search of another load. The powerloader
was battered and dirty with grease. Across its back the word Caterpillar
was faintly visible.
Other troopers drove tow motors or ran loading arms. Occasionally they
called to one another, but for the most part the loading and prep
operation proceeded without conversation. Also without accident, the
members of the squad meshed like the individual gears and wheels of some
halfmetal, half-organic machine. Despite the close quarters in which
they found themselves, and the amount of dangerous machinery in constant
motion, no one so much as scraped his neighbor. Hicks watched over it
all, checking off one item after another on an electronic manifest,
occasionally nodding
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to himself as one more necessary predrop procedure was satisfactorily
completed.
In the armory Wierzbowski, Drake, and Vasquez were fieldstripping light
weapons, their fingers moving with as much precision as the loading
machines in the cargo bay. Tiny circuit boards were removed, checked,
and blown clean of dust and lint before being reinserted into sleek
metal and plastic sculptures of death.
Vasquez removed her heavy smartgun from its rack and locked it into a
work stand and lovingly began to run it through the computer-assisted
final checkout. The weapon was designed to be worn, not carried. It was
equipped with an integral computer lock-and-fire, its own
search-and-detection equipment, and was balanced on a precision gimbal
that stabilized itself according to its operator's movements. It could
do just about everything except pull its own trigger.
Vasquez smiled affectionately as she worked on it. It was a difficult
child, a complex child, but it would protect her and her comrades and
keep them safe from harm. She lavished more understanding and care on it
than she did on any of her colleagues.
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Drake understood completely. He also talked to his weapon, albeit
silently. None of their fellow troopers found such behavior abnormal.
Everyone knew that all Colonial Marines were slightly unbalanced and
that smartgun operators were the strangest of the lot. They tended to
treat their weapons as extensions of their own bodies. Unlike their
colleagues, gun operation was their principal function. Drake and
Vasquez didn't have to worry about mastering communications equipment,
piloting a dropship, driving the armored personnel carrier, or even
helping to load the ship for landing. All they were required to do was
shoot at things. Death-dealing was their designated specialty.
Both of them loved their work.
Not everyone was as busy as the troopers. Burke had completed his few
personal preparations for landing while
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Gorman was able to leave the actual supervision of final prep to Apone.
As they stood off to the side and watched, the Company representative
spoke casually to the lieutenant.
?Still nothing from the colony?"
Gorman shook his head and noted something about the loading procedure
that induced him to make a notation on his electronic pad. ?Not even a
background carrier wave. Dead on all channels.?
?And we're sure about the relay satellite?"
?Bishop insists that he checked it out thoroughly and that it responded
perfectly to every command. Says it gave him something to do while we
were on final system approach. He ran a standard signal check along the
relay back to Earth, and we should get a response in a few days. That'll
be the final confirmation, but he felt sure enough of his own check to
guarantee the system's performance.?
?Then the problem's down on the surface somewhere.?
Gorman nodded. ?Like we've suspected all along.?
Burke looked thoughtful. ?What about local communications? Community
video, operations to tractors, relays between the atmosphere processing
stations, and the like?"
The lieutenant shook his head regretfully. ?If anybody's talking to
anybody else down there, they're doing it with smoke signals or mirrors.
Except for the standard low-end hiss from the local sun, the
electromagnetic spectrum's dead as lead.? [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]