The Deep Man by Michael Mersault

Author:Michael Mersault
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Science Fiction, Military, Action & Adventure, Space Opera
ISBN: 9781982125844
Google: kx-IzgEACAAJ
Amazon: 1982125845
Publisher: Baen
Published: 2022-01-04T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

“Strength only grows from resistance, whether through the crush of gravity or the clash of arms.”

Legacy Mandate by Emperor Yung I

The Marines moved up the companionway, their short-barreled raid carbines in high-ready, their grab-boots skating along the deck in a liquid shuffle. They reached the hatch, and four weapons trained upon its metal stillness. One Marine paused, kicking his leg sharply upward, releasing his lower grab-boot from the deck. In zero gravity his momentum carried him firmly against the ceiling where he clicked into place, pivoting smoothly to face the same hatch.

A second Marine slapped power leads in place, and the corporal barked, “Pop it!”

The door snapped back under their suit-powered overboost, and four weapon-mounted floods illuminated a slice of the exposed compartment with multiple wavelengths of the visible and invisible spectrum.

The corporal triggered one of his UI presets, and all four floods went instantly dark. Without a word, two Marines launched through the door like coiled springs, their upward trajectories bisecting in the darkness. They each executed a tight somersault, their grab-boots sticking the ceiling at almost the same moment. Their floods popped as one, illuminating the two blind corners in a single instant.

Major Kosh Mahdi stepped into the exercise with Sergeant Kabir lumbering at his side. “What do you think, Sergeant?” Major Mahdi inquired in a rhetorical tone.

The two Marines on the ceiling smoothly threw a leg and flipped to the floor, assembling with the other two members of the fire team.

“Major, I think these hard-hitting strikers’d kill the shit out of teddy bears and kittens.”

“I agree,” Major Mahdi said. “Corporal, I realize our current opponents are merely human, but some of these misguided fools were once Marines. What are they now, Corporal?”

“Just targets, sir.”

Major Mahdi smiled. “Good answer. Just targets. Just practice for real opponents.”

If Major Kosh Mahdi possessed an abiding flaw, it was racism; racism in the truest sense of the word. His pro-human chauvinism knew no bounds. No day passed without some reflection upon humanity’s old enemy, the Slaggers, now supposedly exterminated. He willingly stoked these fires, replaying old vidstreams.… There were his great-grandparents, so young, so full of life…their bones, and the substance of a billion other humans now comprised a cloud of ash on a blasted, lifeless planet. The Slaggers were gone, maybe, but someone else would surely come along. Maybe they already had. Who knew what the Shapers really wanted? Major Kosh Mahdi of the Imperial Marines certainly did not trust them.

“Alright, Corporal, keep at it. You’ll do.”

The corporal visibly expanded at the modest praise. Major Mahdi, despite any illiberal defects in character, found great favor among the ranks. When the Major put together an understrength platoon for a nondescript float on a nothing vessel, candidates lined his hall. They just knew it had to be something good, something top secret. Every member of his team held certificates from at least two advanced courses, and every member achieved top marks in marksmanship and zero-grav. A disproportionate percentage were also battledress rated, their own suits secured in Tanager’s hold.

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