Hard Drop Read Online Free PDF Page A

remained unknown, safely beyond their knowledge. It made sense, but it didn't exactly inspire confidence at the outset. “Maintain radio silence until you reach rendezvous or I give the ok. Is that clear?”
    “Yes sir!” They responded, as one, and he nodded, hearing them fall in together. They would have to be, to get through what was coming.
    Ghost stared quietly at Tyco, smiling as he went through his preparations. He met Tyco’s eyes, tapped his chest, and nodded; it was his version of a salute, an acknowledgment that he was here, and ready to go. Ghost was a veteran, focused and intense; he rarely spoke, rarely needed to, but always did what he had to. Tyco needed nothing more. Tyco nodded in response and swung on.
    “Let’s be fast, let’s be clinical, and let’s be clean.” He shouted, raising his voice as he reached the end. “Remember, Soldiers.” He called, turning on his heel to face the waiting troopers. “We don’t make mistakes. We fix them.”  
    That got a few loud grunts of acknowledgment from the veterans. The rookies nodded nervously, a bit more emphatically than was natural, but that was alright too. Anything that loosened them up would do.  
    Tyco turned to finish his rounds and found Chip staring back him with the cold, malicious eyes of a confirmed sociopath as he reached for a cigarette from his pocket. The resident sniper, Chip had lasted longer than everyone but Hog and Tyco, and was friends with no one. From what Tyco could figure out, he’d just never seen the point of making friends.
    “Wait ‘til we’re out of pressure to light that.” Tyco said, and then regretted it immediately. Chip’s fragile psyche was the difference between a quiet entry and an all-out firefight; it meant that critical quarter-inch of aim between forehead and thin air, and it wasn’t worth chancing it on a casual, off-hand comment.  
    “I look like a greenhorn to you?” Chip growled back.  
    “Nope.” Tyco said evenly, staring straight back at Chip’s blank expression. “Just hoping you don’t run out this time.”  
    Chip smiled, and Tyco sighed inwardly. All clear, then. “No shit.” Was all Chip said, but it was alright. He would be ready.  
    And then Tyco saw her. An unknown, a new face, just another greenhorn in a cargo bay half-full of greenhorns. Except that she wasn’t. She was new to the unit, Tyco was certain of that, and green as the unblemished paint of her camouflage, but her eyes were clear and uncompromising, steady even as she fumbled with the workings of her suit, and Tyco couldn’t look away. He could not place her, did not recognize her from training or transport, and that surprised him. At this stage, he usually knew all of his troopers.  
    She stared back at him shyly, alert and overeager as if waiting for an order. He nodded and looked away, momentarily disquieted.
    The siren sounded deafeningly in the tight jump bay, bringing him back to the matter at hand. Tyco looked up at the spinning red light and nodded, feeling the adrenaline rushing through his veins. The countdown had begun.  
    “One minute!” He shouted. In sixty short seconds, the doors would open and they would walk out into the thin flames of the cargo bay, making for the pods that would ferry them to the planet surface in accelerated free fall. “Suit up, troopers! Positions!”
    A flurry of rattles, snaps, and clicks echoed through the heavy air as the veterans strapped down their jumpsuit armor in unison. Helmets clicked and locked into place, sleeves zipped and went airtight, and every weapon in the room was loaded and cocked, safeties carefully flicked on. Tyco snapped his helmet into place and turned to face the launch bay door. He watched the red light carefully, waiting for it to turn, timing its blinking as he tapped one finger against the door controls. The last minute of the wait always seemed unbearably, painfully infinite, even for Tyco after all of his drops. For the greenhorns, it