I've been a marine for three years. I've stood on the hull of a ship in orbit as the moon's shadow crawled across the Earth. I've played the hero, saving colonists from a nest of Hudson's bugs.
Today I'd settle for not puking on my boots.
***
I was in free-fall with twenty tons of airframe falling around me - a C-72 'Widowmaker', a hunchbacked little lifting body built for fast orbital insertion and little else. Certainly not comfort, or me and twelve SPF marines wouldn't be strapped by our cuirasses to pallets in the back.
One of my new squadmates - a Corporal named Briggs - chose that moment to reach a hand over and snap her fingers in front of my face. "Hey, Green! I hope you had a light breakfast this time." Her jovial tone didn't stop me grimacing up at the roof. It might say 'Karen Sheffield' on my dogtags but as far as Briggs was concerned I was 'Green' until I proved otherwise. "Cheer up! It might take a few weeks to get you weaned off of the Mercury, but one day soon you'll be ready to fight from a real dropship."
"Ten seconds until burn."
We hit the atmosphere proper and I sank against my armour as the wind clawed airspeed off the dropship in dribs and drabs. In these last few seconds I braced myself, tightening my abs and pushing my forearms against the pallet, and waited.
"Starting burn."
And I knew it: it slammed me sideways as suddenly the dropship wasn't dropping any more. The pilot was playing chicken with a planet, and the only thing standing between us and a brief career as a kinetic projectile was the current dozen-odd gees we were currently pulling to avoid it. The maneouver was meant to stop the Watch swatting us from the sky with a well placed tugsten crowbar but over Sinaloa II, I think the point was just to make me suffer through it. The pressure on my chest shortened my breaths and my vision was turning gray at the edges but all I could do is scrunch my eyes shut and try to endure it. Three hundred years of study and a week's experience said it wasn't going to kill me, but that didn't stop my hindbrain trying to argue the point.
By the time the pilot levelled out the reprive almost felt like zero-gee again, but it lasted only a second before the dropship hit the ground. The back end opened up and pushed us out into an overcast 'Aloan noon.
I unclipped my armour from the pallet with familiar movements. Sitting up set my stomach roiling, but it gave me room to strap on my assault pack. By the time I was standing, rifle in hand, the Sergeant had already oriented himself and was pointing off into the forest that surrounded the LZ.
Seconds mattered, and the Sergeant's orders were brief. "All fire teams, to the treeline! Move!"
We ran as if our lives depended on it. There was no time to think about anything but the ground in front of my feet and the thudding steps of the rest of my fire team. If someone stumbled inside the killing zone - as I had the previous day - it would be up to the rest of us to drag them clear.
I didn't stumble until we hit the trees. It might have been a rock, or a bit of root, but for a sickening moment I thought I was going to crash again. I ran another dozen steps just trying to get my feet under me.
When I managed to stop myself, it was to try to catch my breath. Bent double, I didn't realise how close the others were until a hand slapped me on the back. "What'd I tell you, Green?" Looking up, I saw Briggs grinning down at me, her cuirass heaving. "Welcome to Sinaloa, the SPF way."
