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He forced a smile. “Okay, people, what are we waiting for? Our cave awaits. The last one to the top digs the latrine.”
The bridge personnel continued their climb.
In spite of efforts to keep the HEVs together, the Helljumpers came down in a landing zone that stretched approximately three kilometers in diameter. Some of the landings were classic two-point affairs in which the more fortunate Marines were able to jettison their crash cages about fifty meters off the ground, and land like sim soldiers in a training vid.
Others were a good deal less graceful, as the skeletal remains of their drop pods smashed against cliffs, dropped into lakes, and in one unfortunate case rolled into a deep ravine. As the surviving Helljumpers extricated themselves from their HEVs, a homing beacon snapped to life, and they were able to orient themselves to the red square which appeared on their transparent eye-screens. That was where Major Silva had landed, a temporary HQ had been established, and the battalion would regroup.
Each pod was stripped of extra weapons, ammo, and other supplies, which meant that the force which converged on the hot dry plateau was well equipped. Helljumpers were supposed to be able to operate without external resupply for two-week periods, and Silva was pleased that his troops had retained most of their gear, despite the difficult drop conditions.
In fact,Silva thought as he watched his troops stream in from every direction,the only thing we lack is a fleet of Warthogs and a squad of Scorpions. But those assets would come, oh, yes they would, shortly after the butte was wrenched from enemy hands. In the meantime, the Helljumpers would use what ground-pounders always use: their feet.
First Lieutenant Melissa McKay had landed safely, as had most of her 130-person company. Three of her people had been killed in action on theAutumn , and two were missing and presumed dead. Not too bad, all things considered.
As luck would have it, McKay hit the dirt only half a klick away from the homing beacon, which meant that by the time a perimeter had been established she had already humped her gear across the hardpan, located Major Silva, and reported in. McKay was one of his favorites. The ODST officer nodded by way of a greeting. “Nice of you to drop in, Lieutenant . . . I was beginning to wonder if you’d taken the afternoon off.”
“No, sir,” McKay responded. “I dozed off on the way down and slept through my wake-up alarm. It won’t happen again.”
Silva managed to keep a straight face. “Glad to hear it.”
He paused, then pointed. “You see that butte? The one with the structures on top? I want it.”
McKay looked, brought her binoculars up, and looked again. The butte’s range appeared along the bottom of the image and was soon chased out of the frame by coordinates that Wellsley inserted to replace the concepts of longitude and latitude which worked on most planetary surfaces, but not here.
The sun was “setting” but there was still enough light to see by. As she surveyed the target area, a Covenant Banshee took off from the top of the butte, circled out toward the “west,” and came straight at her. The only thing that was surprising about that was the fact that it had taken the enemy so long to respond to their landing.