Read Online In the Valley by Jason Lambright - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jason Lambright
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He shifted his load again and compulsively checked his halo load-out diagram: 440 rounds, 6.8 mm—check. Adequate water, stored in his back bladder—check. Rations for one day—check. Personal medical equipment—check. Three smoke grenades, all different colors—check. Two M67 fragmentation grenades—check. The list scrolled on the left side of his vision while he moved with Second Company to the outer perimeter of the firebase.
A couple more steps and he was walking past a Juneau Army ground-car with an incongruous antilander cannon. That meant that Paul had reached the outer perimeter. Strangely enough, his balls did not pull up into his belly from the tension. He knew that he was headed into unsuited combat, but he felt good. His body would hold on throughout the movement. He was trained, experienced, and had all the right toys.
The branches of dinosaur trees arched overhead, making a curious mottled light as he walked. Paul heard some clanking of equipment to his front and cursing in a low voice. No one wanted to give away the column, so violations of noise discipline were dealt with summarily and harshly.
Paul saw Bashir in front of him, clearly. Bashir moved as if he didn’t have a care in the world. And as usual, he carried no weapons openly. Bashir left the big guns for his soldiers—if he needed to mete out death, he would do it at close range with his Deutsch surplus P-39.
Paul had seen Bashir in action a couple of days ago. A wounded dissident had reached for a weapon as they were entering a house, and Bashir hadsmoothly dispatched him with the pistol that had been tucked under his shirt. He shot the man before anyone else even had a chance to react.
Bashir was a pro, and his men were killers. Paul felt a gathering power in the darkness as they marched toward Pashto Khel. As he turned north with Second Company toward the river, Paul was ready for whatever came next.
A fter completing advanced infantry training, it was traditional for soldiers to get a few weeks of block leave before shipping off-world. So Paul went home with a halo certificate that authorized him thirty days of freedom before his life-changing trip to the stars.
Freedom
: Paul couldn’t think of a better word for the marvelous feeling he felt as he flew from the shuttle terminal in Oklahoma City, bound for Pittsburgh. In the Oklahoma City terminal he didn’t feel his liberation so much because there were coffles of force recruits doing the perp walk down to Fort Sill, with cadre guidance to keep them from going astray. Paul felt the recruits’ pain, having been in their position only twenty weeks earlier.
In fact, he wished he could shrink into the floor to stay away from the hard-faced sergeants he saw in the terminal there. However, the cadre from Sill paid him no attention in his dress browns. He was clearly on leave, headed somewhere. The training cadre had bigger fish to fry than one lone trooper in his browns. Besides, Paul looked squared away in his dress uniform. There was nothing out of regulations about him. From the stiff high collar of his blouse, adorned with the crossed-rifles pin, to the permapolish dark brown of his low-quarters (his dress shoes), his look was squared away.
He was no longer a recruit in the training and doctrine command. He had orders on his halo that said so, visible to all with mil-grade government access. His orders stated that on 28MAR15 (March 28, 2315) he was to boardtransportation from his HOR (home of record, a ubiquitous military acronym) to Force Installation Gutierrez, in Cuba. From Cuba, he would loft upward with an unknown number of fellow soldiers and navy types via hypersonic shuttle to the FSS
Merton R. Johnson
, the outbound freighter to the Hyades cluster, 153 light-years away.
Apparently the world he was going to was Ottawa 6, and it orbited a star called
Tauri
-something. He really didn’t know much about the place, and frankly, he didn’t care. All his eyes had seen upon
A couple more steps and he was walking past a Juneau Army ground-car with an incongruous antilander cannon. That meant that Paul had reached the outer perimeter. Strangely enough, his balls did not pull up into his belly from the tension. He knew that he was headed into unsuited combat, but he felt good. His body would hold on throughout the movement. He was trained, experienced, and had all the right toys.
The branches of dinosaur trees arched overhead, making a curious mottled light as he walked. Paul heard some clanking of equipment to his front and cursing in a low voice. No one wanted to give away the column, so violations of noise discipline were dealt with summarily and harshly.
Paul saw Bashir in front of him, clearly. Bashir moved as if he didn’t have a care in the world. And as usual, he carried no weapons openly. Bashir left the big guns for his soldiers—if he needed to mete out death, he would do it at close range with his Deutsch surplus P-39.
Paul had seen Bashir in action a couple of days ago. A wounded dissident had reached for a weapon as they were entering a house, and Bashir hadsmoothly dispatched him with the pistol that had been tucked under his shirt. He shot the man before anyone else even had a chance to react.
Bashir was a pro, and his men were killers. Paul felt a gathering power in the darkness as they marched toward Pashto Khel. As he turned north with Second Company toward the river, Paul was ready for whatever came next.
A fter completing advanced infantry training, it was traditional for soldiers to get a few weeks of block leave before shipping off-world. So Paul went home with a halo certificate that authorized him thirty days of freedom before his life-changing trip to the stars.
Freedom
: Paul couldn’t think of a better word for the marvelous feeling he felt as he flew from the shuttle terminal in Oklahoma City, bound for Pittsburgh. In the Oklahoma City terminal he didn’t feel his liberation so much because there were coffles of force recruits doing the perp walk down to Fort Sill, with cadre guidance to keep them from going astray. Paul felt the recruits’ pain, having been in their position only twenty weeks earlier.
In fact, he wished he could shrink into the floor to stay away from the hard-faced sergeants he saw in the terminal there. However, the cadre from Sill paid him no attention in his dress browns. He was clearly on leave, headed somewhere. The training cadre had bigger fish to fry than one lone trooper in his browns. Besides, Paul looked squared away in his dress uniform. There was nothing out of regulations about him. From the stiff high collar of his blouse, adorned with the crossed-rifles pin, to the permapolish dark brown of his low-quarters (his dress shoes), his look was squared away.
He was no longer a recruit in the training and doctrine command. He had orders on his halo that said so, visible to all with mil-grade government access. His orders stated that on 28MAR15 (March 28, 2315) he was to boardtransportation from his HOR (home of record, a ubiquitous military acronym) to Force Installation Gutierrez, in Cuba. From Cuba, he would loft upward with an unknown number of fellow soldiers and navy types via hypersonic shuttle to the FSS
Merton R. Johnson
, the outbound freighter to the Hyades cluster, 153 light-years away.
Apparently the world he was going to was Ottawa 6, and it orbited a star called
Tauri
-something. He really didn’t know much about the place, and frankly, he didn’t care. All his eyes had seen upon
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