Soldiers Out of Time by Steve White

Author:Steve White [White, Steve]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781476780726
Amazon: 1476780722
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2015-08-04T04:00:00+00:00

The gig was definitely not intended for long-term occupancy. This was an exceptionally extended trip for it, and they were all stiff and cramped by the time the transport grew in the viewscreen, silhouetted against the cloud-swirling blue day side of Planet B, about twenty-two thousand miles below—or “away,” if one chose to so view it, for at the distance required for a geostationary orbit it could be thought of either way.

“You realize,” said Hansen, “they’re orbiting well outside Planet B’s Primary Limit. So at any time, they could accelerate away at over a hundred Gs.”

“Yes,” nodded Jason. “If, that is, there’s anybody aboard. It doesn’t look like it.”

“So you think they all went down in the shuttle?”

“I don’t know.” Jason peered at the planet. The gig’s sensor suite was rudimentary, but they had been able to ascertain that the transport’s orbit kept it over a point on the west coast of one of the continents, and that this was the point from which the fairly weak energy readings emanated. There was some kind of small base or camp or something down there.

He reached a decision. “I want to investigate more closely—see if that ship really is as deserted as it seems. And if it is, we can use a paratronic lockpick to board her. Bring us a little closer.”

Hansen obeyed, and the gig drew into a range where it was surely visible to any operating sensors aboard the transport. Jason, Mondrago and the commandos attached modular EVA packs to the backs of their suits and, with a rattle of equipment, went single-file through the cabin’s after hatch into the cargo bay.

EVA procedures were a matter of routine. Hanson bled the air from the sealed cargo bay and, after it was in vacuum, opened its ventral hatch. The seven-member party then drifted out, using the EVA packs. The latter were small grav repulsion units, unable to provide much in the way of propulsion this far from Planet B’s surface, where they only had a gravity field of less than 0.1 G to work with. But it sufficed, given that they were in free fall and at any rate had no desire to build up a possibly uncontrollable velocity. And returning to the gig would be no problem; it mounted a small tractor beam projector in the cargo bay, so Hansen could simply pull them in one by one. Jason, wanting to keep radio communications to a minimum, gave a hand signal and they moved slowly toward the darkened transport, tightly grouped for safety.

They were about halfway there, with the gig growing tiny in the distance, when it happened.

Without warning, lights awakened up and down the transport. And a retractable ventral turret began to extrude itself. In the light of the planet, Jason instantly recognized that turret for what it was. Horrified, he watched it swivel in the direction of the gig.

In the vacuum of space there is, of course, no sound. And laser beams—even those in the visible-light wavelengths, much less the X-ray lasers of space combat—are invisible.

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