The crack in the voice of Wasp-Two’s pilot made it sound like he had much more to live for than the rest of us. “Good God! Am I the only one seeing this?”

He wasn’t. Having been assigned as Dr. Jella Duverii’s bodyguard, I was seated in Wasp-Three’s cockpit with the command staff instead of in the egress bay with the rest of the troops. I had a clear view out of the forward window. To be honest, the sight of Kanaris-6 unnerved me, too.

Most planets looked serene and peaceful from space, no matter what kind of pandemonium was unfolding upon the surface. Kanaris looked pissed. There was a massive cyclone covering nearly the entire continent where we were supposed to land. It was so violent that we could see the storm rotate even though we were still quite some distance from entry. I was no meteorologist, but I suspected that the clouds were being slung about at speeds registering in the hundreds of kilometers an hour. I could not believe that we were seriously contemplating landing in something like that.

“My instruments say that thing’s blowing at seven hundred and forty-eight knots!” Wasp-Two blurted out again. “We can’t possibly be going through with this!”

“Wasp-Two,” our pilot calmly responded. Chief Warrant Officer Je’Sikka Albarn was a seasoned veteran. “Those readings are from near the eye of the storm. Our landing zone is at the edge of the event. Local wind speeds are well under the three-hundred-kilometer-an-hour threshold these vessels are designed to withstand. Just keep the ship on auto-pilot and be ready to grab the controls if something goes wrong.”

“But…but…”

“Warrant Officer Sirrah,” Albarn interrupted. “Just let the dropship’s programming do its job. The ride’s going to be bumpy. It’s going to wreak havoc on the Marines’ stomachs. When it’s all over, though, the worst that’s going to happen is you’ll end up cleaning far more of your staging bay than you probably imagined you would when you launched from the mothership.”

I had heard Wasp-Three’s crew talking about CWO1 Grazny Sirrah before we detached from the Nebulan Phoenix. He was another fast-tracked Samaari gaining promotion based more upon his family’s wealth than on his merits as a pilot. Typically, a candidate would need to assist on at least fifty combat drops before the squadron even considers them for a slot in the captain’s chair. Sirrah had zero. The powers-that-be decided that, at least in his case, Sirrah’s training record and ferry sorties were enough.

“Wouldn’t it just make more sense to delay this landing until the storm blows over?” the green pilot pleaded.

“We’re not delaying the goddamn mission!” The voice cutting into the commlink was Colonel Traegus, the task force’s commander aboard Wasp-One. “We just got a positive sign of life out of that place along with a mayday signal indicating that we still have an asset on the ground at Narman’s Pyke and they are under threat! We ARE going to land where and when we were ordered to! Do you copy that?!?”

The biggest problem with junior officers pulled from the elite ranks of Samaari society was that they were not used to taking orders. They grew up bossing their servants around, so they tended to bristle when others told them what to do. They also rarely suffered consequences for their actions and, therefore, often acted irrationally when under adversity. This is the only reason I can fathom that Wasp-Two’s pilot would have felt he could argue with a brigade commander. “But, sir! How much good do you think we’ll be down there if we make landfall in fifteen billion charred little pieces?!?”

“Warrant Officer Sirrah,” Je’Sikka Albarn chimed in once more. “Keep your vessel on auto-pilot like I told you to and you’ll be fine. Trust me. I’ve landed in conditions like these a million times.”

Albarn’s co-pilot turned towards her. Switching off his microphone so his trembling voice would not be heard outside the cockpit, he asked, “Really?”

Albarn laughed without humor and then shot her executive officer a look that suggested he had lost his mind. “No,” she confessed.

Albarn’s trepidation caught the attention of our guide, who was seated at my left elbow. “Why can’t we wait a few more hours for the danger to pass?” Jella asked me. “These storms are as fast as they are devastating. Narman Pyke’s elevation is so high that even the biggest cyclones seldom last more than six or seven hours.”

The battalion’s sergeant-major, Konig Maddahor, was sitting to my right. Overhearing the doctor’s questions, he leaned over me to answer her. “Somebody at Narman’s Pyke sent off a rocket beacon as we entered the system,” Maddahor said. Kanaris-6 was full of Harnillium crystals, which played havoc with magnetic and electrical fields. Radio range was, at best, four kilometers on the ground, so transmitters had to be launched into space to communicate with anyone in orbit.

“Now that we know someone is alive down there,” the sergeant continued. “We need to get to them before whatever they’re facing does.”

“How many people are we expecting to find down there?” Jella asked.

“We’ve only confirmed one so far.”

“One?!?” she gasped. “We’re risking three dropships, containing what? Two thousand people a piece? To rescue one person?!? That’s insane!”

Maddahor shrugged. “Well, we suspect that that one person may be an important intelligence asset, not to mention related to a League senator.”

Jella’s jaw dropped open. “A senator’s relative is worth the lives of six thousand Marines and billions of credits’ worth of spacecraft and equipment?!?”

The sergeant grinned. “It is if you’re an admiral looking to make a lucrative move into politics after you hang up your epaulets.”

I looked back up at the window as Jella Duverii shook her head in disgust. We were coming at Kanaris fast now, and the cyclone took up the entire view. Our pilot grabbed the intercom and reminded the troops to double-check their restraints. “I expect this to be one of the rougher landings you’ll ever experience. Make sure you’re all buckled in as tight as you can be.”

I leaned over to ensure the doctor was properly fastened against her seat. “Eamon,” she said to me. “I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”

Nodding at her sympathetically, I told her, “So do I. Whatever happens is out of our hands, though. There’s nothing we can do about it. If it’s any consolation, I’ve seen our pilot in her dress blues. She’s got a chest full of ribbons. We’re in some of the best hands that the fleet has to offer, unlike those poor bastards sitting in Wasp-Two right now.”

As if to prove my point, CWO Sirrah’s voice broke over the commlink again. “Look, this is madness! We need to abort this landing!”

“Goddammit, Wasp-Two!” bellowed Colonel Traegus from the command transport. “You stay the fucking course!”

“We can’t, sir! This is suicide!” Sirrah sounded as if he was getting hysterical.

“Wasp-Two co-pilot!” Traegus shouted. “Your commander is relieved! Take the goddamn con!”

“No!” Sirrah protested. Then the line went silent.

Traegus allowed the formation’s starboard dropship a couple of moments to sort itself out before trying to raise them again. “Wasp-Two? Wasp-Two? Wasp-Two, do you copy?”

There was nothing in response. I glanced at the window and saw we had nearly reached Kanaris’s exosphere. I could now feel the gravitational pull of our destination. Right in my gut.

“Wasp-Two? Wasp-Two! Someone pick up the goddamn mic right n…!”

“This is Wasp-Two.” It was Sirrah’s voice again, panting as if he was trying to catch his breath. In the background was a lot of commotion.

Traegus was not amused. “Put your fucking co-pilot on!”

“He’s dead, sir,” Sirrah confessed, oddly calm for a man who had just committed a capital offense. “He was trying to usurp my command, so I had to…”

“YOU DID WHAT?!?” Traegus screamed. “DO YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT YOU’VE DONE?!?”

“It was an attempted mutiny, sir,” Sirrah said, clutching at straws in a wild attempt to justify his actions. “He was going to…”

“I’M GOING TO HAVE YOU FUCKING SHOT!”

“Do you have any idea who my father is, Colonel Traegus?” Sirrah asked. He sounded entirely confident that his family’s resources could keep him well beyond the reach of military justice. “They’ll have you shot before me.”

“YOU GODDAMN SON-OF-A…!”

“Sir, this landing is currently too hazardous to attempt. It’s my duty, in order to preserve the lives of my crew and my ship, to abort this…”

“Sirrah!” our pilot shouted into her mic. “No! It’s too late for that! You’re too low! If you pull up now, you’ll bounce off the atmosphere like a skipping stone! Don’t do it! DON’T…!”

“Piss off!” Sirrah spat back. “I know what I’m doing!”

As far as I can tell, those were the last words Grazny Sirrah ever uttered.

***