Priam's Lens by Jack L. Chalker

Author:Jack L. Chalker [Chalker, Jack L.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science fiction; American, Space Opera, Interplanetary voyages, General, Science Fiction, Adventure, Life on other planets, Fiction
ISBN: 9780345402943
Publisher: Del Rey
Published: 1999-04-30T23:00:00+00:00

Titans will leave anything with surface access unmonitored. I'm certain they could drain the entire planet of power if they wished; it's just too much trouble and no profit. Our objective is to bring the codes out without activating them. Once we do, once storage becomes active energy—watch out!"

"Do you really think even the likes of us can hack it down there, Colonel? Give me my combat suit and I'll take on an army, but bare-handed ..."

"I have no intention of being down there bare-handed," N'Gana responded. "However, there will be both vulnera-bilities and limits. You were Commando, right?"

"Yes. A while ago."

"You're still a Commando and you know it. It's in the blood. If you'd quit and gone into the diamond business or started dirt farming, maybe not, but you stayed in. I think you're probably very good, Harker. Both the sergeant and I were Rangers. Much the same sort of thing. Each of us, deep down, thinks the other's training wasn't quite up to our own, but we know how even we really are.

What was the final exam for you, Harker? In individual rather than squad training."

Harker gave a mirthless smile. "They stripped us down to our underwear and dropped us on a hellhole of a planet with only what we'd have coming out of a lifeboat. The pickup point, the only one on the whole damned planet, was almost three thousand kilometers away by land and sea. We either got there whole and called for pickup or we failed."

"Fairly similar with us. We dropped as a squad, fully or-ganized, but the problem and objective were the same. Did everyone in your class make it?"

"No. I understand that, out of twenty-five who were eventually dropped, six never checked in."

"Well, my losses were a bit worse," said N'Gana, "That's why we volunteered. Nobody had to do it. Even down to that last drop, anybody could have said `No!' and nothing more would have been said about it. They'd have simply rotated back. But we went. By that point anybody who'd freeze had already been pressured or threatened out. We did it then. This will be no different."

"Maybe. I was nineteen real at the time and I thought I was immortal and, after that full course, some kind of superman as well. I'm a lot older now, and I've been shot up a lot of times and scraped up a few more."

"Well, I'm nearly fifty real, and I believe I could do that course again. I have yet to be defeated by

Doctor Soco-lov's simulator program, and I see nothing so far that would suggest that this is not doable. I would agree that the odds are almost nil that we will all survive, and slim that any, let alone most, of us will make it back to be picked up. But I don't see anything here that skews the odds any worse than the Ranger examination course."

Harker sighed. "Colonel, I had an electronic direction finder, I had a small sidearm, a medikit, and a few other things when I did my exam.

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