Chapter 29

At midnight local time, the task group had moved in and taken up a stationary orbit on the far side of the planet, mirroring that of the LMP ship.

All elements of the assault team had gathered in the hangar bay as instructed and were awaiting instructions. The Heavy Armor troops were rechecking their powered suits while the men in the lighter raider armor lounged on the deck nearby, calling out good-natured, and often obscene, tips.

The heavy assault armor was a massive exoskeleton that could carry up to a metric ton of armor plating. The power assist servos allowed each soldier to carry weapons that would have been vehicle mounted by armies of the past. Unarmed, the exoskeleton gave a soldier the power to rip the door off of a ground vehicle and toss it like a discus.

The lighter raider armor still had armor plates, but they were concentrated over the vital areas and the unpowered exoskeleton allowed the weight to be evenly distributed over the body without putting stress on the hips, knees and ankles, all problem areas for soldiers in the past.

The command element was easily identifiable because they were wearing only armored vests and helmets over their vacuum suits. The suits themselves were woven of a tough polymer that would stop the frangible rounds usually used aboard ships, and they would provide protection against sharp instrument trauma, but they were not armor in the traditional sense.

The Gunny was standing in the middle of the bay, watching the preparations until the ship's bell rang the midnight hour.

"ATTENTION ON DECK!" The Gunny's voice rang out over the shuttle bay's loudspeakers.

"Heavies, get that armor on. Raiders, stand to. Command element, please place yourselves along the bulkhead and out of the way."

He watched patiently as his orders were carried out and when the heavy assault unit was ready, he lined them up in order of movement according to the plan. He ran them though several scenarios, some were for entries where there was no resistance and others against increasing levels of resistance from armed adversaries. He then ran them through it again, but planning for a breach of the hull instead of an open hatch.

By the time he had finished, there was just enough time left to load the shuttles before the launch window opened. The shuttles were loaded "First in, Last out" meaning that the first people to go on board were the command group since they would be last to get off the shuttle at the target. The rear of each shuttle contained an armored docking collar that could be locked to a ship's hull, allowing the soldiers inside to enter a ship without an airlock or, if needed, breach a ship without working on the hull, unprotected. This meant that the soldiers closest to the rear of the ship would also be the soldiers closest to the enemy.

Each member of the assault force had a heads-up unit that displayed information on the inside of their visors. It could display intelligence information, schematics, planned routes and targets; and even information about individual soldiers' medical status and ammunition.

Kat had received a briefing on the use of the heads-up display and its wrist mounted control panel from Bob. It was programmable so that users could set up macros to control otherwise complex sets of instructions. She had set her Comm up to mirror her display commands so that if she selected a single individual or the entire group, the Comm unit would do the same.

Once launched, the shuttles accelerated away from the parent ship and, when they reached the pre-programmed velocity, shut down the engines and coasted around the planet in a ballistic orbit. They had rudimentary cloaking capability that denied the sensors of any hostile ship the ability to lock on to the small vessels. They would coast in until close enough, and then the maneuvering jets would swing the shuttles around and push it against the skin of the ship, all in less time that it takes to describe the maneuver.

Something was happening. Pan wasn't sure exactly what, but the crew had been tense all day long. Even his normally phlegmatic keeper was scowling and impatient, trying to rush Pan back to his cabin after dinner instead of allowing him his hour of exercise. He had put up a token resistance, but when the keeper started getting angry, Pan backed down. He was not ready to force a confrontation yet.

Back in his room, Pan waited, and planned. He had managed to identify five sound and three vision surveillance devices in his room. He could disable all of them in just a couple of minutes, if needed, but he had to be sure it was worth the chance. If he acted prematurely, he would be confined to a cell in the brig and that would put a serious crimp in any plans he had of escaping.

He had made plan after plan, and discarded them all. His exercise regimen had him more fit than at any period in his life, but he had to face the facts. He was still minus a leg, dressed in a hospital gown and his only weapons, besides his hands, were the light plastic crutches and a stylus he had managed to pocket unnoticed. The stylus had been sharpened, in the dark of night, and was in his waistband, but it was a sorry weapon against the tazers and slug throwers the crew had access to.

His only hope was for some outside distraction or emergency. After all this time, being so compliant and innocuous, he was sure that he could surprise his keeper and sow some confusion in the ranks. The chance of making it to a shuttle was slim, but he was not about to give in without a fight. He just needed the right opportunity.

The Assault Shuttles were right on schedule and the visuals from the cockpit were being piped to the heads-up displays for the soldiers in the troop bays. The troops were, for the most part, ignoring the incoming video but Kat, who had traveled extensively, was fascinated.

Most of her traveling had been by passenger liner and the view of deep space was old hat, gawking was something that first time tourists did. She had even had a chance to view open space through an honest-to-goodness plasglass viewport a time or two, a rarity on modern ships because the view screen technology was able to produce a sharper picture than the human eye could interpret. After a while, it all seemed so hum-drum. Without a sense of scale, the human mind had problems interpreting the data, understanding what it was seeing.