The Assault of Orion
I
Part Two
Trooper Cahill ran his hand down her smooth
flank and gently laid his cheek against her side . He softly
whispered to her . " Soon baby , soon I can untie you
and then we can have some real fun." He reached down
and checked the fasteners that held her firmly to the rings
in the floor. I know you hate this baby but it's for your
own good and it won't be for too long." He gently checked
to make sure the clasps weren't chafing her too badly . A
harsh voice behind him startled him . "Everything OK
Cahill ?" A familiar voice asked .His face flushed crimson
as he wondered how much his Sergeant heard . " Sure thing
Sarge , just checking the tiedowns on the tank and making
sure that those swabbies didn't mess anything up when they
fastened her to the deck." Rhame just nodded at his driver
and motioned a thumb over his shoulder. " The pre invasion
briefing starts in 10 minutes so get a move on." Cahill
all but ran out of the cargo bay and out from his Tank commanders
glare. Rhame shook his head as the Trooper disappeared through
the hatch. Cahill had an affinity with machines that even
the Meklar mechanics in the Motor Pool had remarked on once
, but whispering sweet nothings to the tank was a bit much.
Rhame headed for the hatch as it wouldn't do for him to be
late to the briefing . He paused a moment and slowly walked
to his tank and placed his hand gently on the cool side for
a moment . In a voice so low it could barely be heard over
the humming of the air circulators " Just one more battle
old girl , just keep us safe for one more. " He shook
his head a moment and strode out the hatch without looking
back.
The messhall/briefing chamber was packed with more people
than Rhame had ever seen at one time this whole voyage . "At
least the Corps could be transported as a whole on these new
class of troop transports" Rhame thought . He remembered
the old days packed in like sardines in those old slow buckets
that were more akin to spacegoing coffins that proper spacecraft.
"You made 6 drops in those buckets 'old man' and you
came through better than most of the guys that you went through
Armor school with." he said to himself.
Rhame found the rest of 3rd platoon by just looking for Sgt.
Kindred , easily the tallest man in the room . He wondered
for the 100th time what kind of deal he had made with Personnel
Department to get assigned to tanks even though he was clearly
at least 6 inches too tall and 50 lbs over the maximum allowable
for Armor asignment . Sgt. Kindred was arguing with his gunner
Cpl. Burke again . Rhame wondered what it was THIS time .
As he got close enough to hear he rolled his eyes when he
got the gist of this conversation. "I'm not kidding ,
I got this from a friend of mine and I checked the code out
Sergeant , this code upgrade will give us a 40% increase in
target aquisition speed and cut through the ECM noise 60%
better than what we have uploaded now." "It's the
genuine code out of the Hack Labs but it just hasn't been
approved for use yet but it's the real deal , I checked it
line by line and it'll work perfectly" Rhame came up
behind them and decided to end this before the whole platoon
found themselves with unauthorized code in their hardware.
"I am telling you once and once only Corporal , no unapproved
code on any machine in this Platoon are we crystal clear ?"
Cpl. Burke spun around and nodded quickly to his Platoon Leader
. "Sure Sarge , I was just trying to get us ahead of
the curve on this drop" They were interrupted by the
Corps Command Sergeant Majors bellow " ATTENTION ON DECK
." All sound stopped as all the men in the room came
to attention , the General had arrived.
General Parker stepped to the podium and glared at the assembled
Troopers. The General was shorter than most of the soldiers
looking up at her but her troops knew that small frame contained
a commander that didn't accept anything except victory and
expected nothing less than 100% from all her units during
battle. Her voice carried by the halls audio system had an
edge of anger that caused a slight apprehension in her troops.
"Alright XV Corps we have a change in Battle Plans and
you all need to pay close attention or the whole Corps is
going to be hip deep in flarg " There was a murmmer among
the gathered Troopers ."A change of the Battle Plan ?"
Rhame thought ." The day before the drop , they must
be crazy" All of 3rd Platoon looked at Rhame as if to
ask if he had known of this. The stricken look on his face
told them the truth. General Parker let the mumbling go on
for only a few seconds before growling out " Alright
quit acting like a bunch of Infantrymen and get your heads
in the game !" She looked around as the insult hit home
and the troops shut right up. "Military Intelligence
has informed us that the Antarans had a spy in High Command
that passed our Battle Plans and drop zones back to Orion
and I was given the options to abort the attack or land in
the planned area if I thought it was possible ." "Well
I didn't like either of those options so I told High Command
that if they gave me discretion as to drop location , that
XV Corps could carve a drop zone for the other units to land
in" She looked at all her soldiers before telling them
the rest. " The General in command of Army Group Center
wanted to abort the whole invasion until the Field Marshal
told him that if any unit could do it , XV Corps could."
"So the Field Marshal thinks we can do it , I think we
can do it , but it won't work unless YOU think we can do it."
"So XV Corps can we do this or do I send the abort code
to High Command " The massive "UUUUURAHHHHHHH"
that echoed off the walls was all the answer she needed .
She turned on the holoprojector behind her and began to sketch
out the new plan "Alright now here's what we are going
to do"
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