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In this sort of warfare, an AKV or even a pistol--prepared for the vacuum, but
with standard-issue bullets--was as effective against a soldier as
antipersonnel lasers.
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Mirsky approached the small group surrounding "Zev," Major General
Sosnitsky. "Our battalion is prepared, Comrade General," he reported.
.Sosnitsky's staff of three officers---with the Zampolit, Major
Belozersky, standing nearby were checking and re-checking the general's suit,
like chicks around a hen. Sosnitsky lifted a gloved hand over the commotion
and offered it to Mirsky.
Mirsky grasped it firmly. "The Marshall would be proud of you and your men,"
Sosnitsky said. "Today---or tonight or whatever it is--will be glorious."
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"Yes, sir," Mirsky said. Even though his thoughts about the command structure
bordered on the cynical, Sosnitsky had the power to make him feel emotion.
"We will give them something back for Kiev, won't we, Comrade?"
"That we will, Comrade General."
He glanced up at Belozersky. The political officer's expression was a mix of
exaltation and borderline panic. His eyes were wide and his upper lip was
damp.
Mirsky wiped his own upper lip. Moist. His whole face was moist.
Then he backed away from the group and resumed his position.
The queuing lights near the three circular exit hatches came on and the craft
began its erratic tumbling, designed to offer unpredictable targets for
marksman as the soldiers leaped forth. It would also scatter them like chaff
inside the bore hole; the parmers would grip each other's harnesses and jump
as a group to stay together until they had their bearings.
They would not fire randomly; there was more chance of hitting one another
than an antagonist. Only in direct combat
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opponents would they fire, and they were not to waste their time even with
that if it could be avoided.
Everyone was suited and lined up. The emergency airlock surrounding number
two exit hatch had been dismantled and stowed against the bulkhead. The pumps
began to evacuate the compartments with throaty grumbles and a high pud-pud.
The connecting hatches between the compartments slid shut, The lights were
extinguished. The only thing
Mirsky's soldiers could see now were the queuing lights above the exit hatches
and the luminous glows of their guide ropes.
"Check radios and locators," he said. Each soldier performed a quick
diagnostic on his communications gear and the all-important beacon locator.
The queuing lights flashed at half-second intervals. Everyone made sure they
were connected to the trolley which would guide and tug them around the
compartments until it brought them to their exit hatch.
Ten seconds until hatch opening. The motion of the ship jerking, pitching and
rolling as its maneuvering jets fired unevenly--was beginning to affect even
Mirsky.
He could no longer hear the pumps. They were in vacuum.
The hatches slid open abruptly and the queues began to spill out into darkness
and silence.
Two squads destined for the first chamber---twenty men in all---went out in
the first queue.
Mirsky was third in his queue. Ulopov went ahead and Mirsky held him by a
strap attached to his thigh. Mirsky in turn was held by Zhadov, who kept the
laser cannon strapped to his side. The trio gripped the hatch edge and kicked
away in unison, as they had been trained, flying from the craft like a
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precision skydiving team, a little star of six legs in the vast darkness.
His eyes adjusted quickly and he switched on his locator.
For a heart-stopping moment he thought all was lost; he could not hear even a
whisper of signal. Then came the steady high-frequency
CHUFF-chu-chuff of the beacon, placed by some unknown compatriot---perhaps
dead already, murdered by the Americans---in the bore hole leading into the
second chamber.
And he could make out the tiny spot of light that was the opening to the first
chamber.
Stuff floating around. Bumping, smearing. Dark drops fuzzing out.
Large chunks of metal in his helmet beam, sections of torn bulkhead and
rippling sheets of steel . . . a ship!
Tangled in something invisible ahead, the wreckage of one of the heavy-lifters
vibrated ponderously, fly caught in a web, surrounded by drifting bodies, most
without helmets. Pieces of limbs and trunks drifted past.
A blinding nimbus surrounded them all. High-inteusity potlights played around
the ships and their disgorged soldiers, dead and alive.
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Zhadov let go of Mirsky's strap, and Mirsky instinctively reached for the
man's weapon but caught his arm instead. The suit squirmed in his grip and
the body twisted fiercely, almost dragging Mirsky away from
Ulopov. Zhadov's suit had been holed and the venting gas whirled him about
like a released balloon. Mirsky reached out as far as he could and gripped
the cannon. He handed it to Ulopov.
(As clear as reality---clearer, at the moment--he stood in a grassy field and
contemplated this nightmare. He gathered his chute up from the yellow grass
and shook his head, grinning at his imagination.)
Soldiers filled the bore hole, hundreds of them, and all around he could
instinctively feel the invisible laser needles and projectiles searching,
piercing, picking away.
Mirsky pulled Ulopov to him and swung his helmet beam around, looking for the
wall they should be approaching. It was not visible.
Zhadov's death had knocked them off course.
"Use your rocket pack," he told the major. "We break up now."
"Spshhome potato," the Major commented dryly, the voice-activated microphone
cutting off the first sound of each phrase.
"Sphshhotter than an oven. Spshhust be baked. Shhpood luck, Colonel
Mirsky let go of the strap and fired his thruster. He swung outward, away
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