Only two snippets this week!
Blue opened up a private line with Sergeant Ord as she leveled out and soared above the waves. “Does Vixen need a battle buddy? I’m sure I can get another one to puke before we hit the DZ.”
“No, ma’am. He needed a little character building anyway. This’ll do nicely.”
“Copy character building,” she said with a laugh.
Killi had also apparently scored at least one winner, because she’d leveled out and was flying on her wing as steadily as any passenger shuttle. And just in time too. The jungle training area was less than twenty miles away and closing fast.
The island was an irregular square in shape, with wide sandy beaches and thick jungles. There was a tiny, timeworn mountain range cutting through the middle like the spine of some ancient beast, more rolling hills than anything else. The island was large enough to boast three different drop zones, all painstakingly carved out and maintained by Sagetnam’s training center, but their two squads had the run of the entire island today.
What her legionnaires did once they were on the ground was up to Sergeant Ord. If the aircrews were lucky, they’d get called back in to play a little too, but per the current mission plan, their involvement ended at the hot drop.
Blue pulled back on the throttles and decreased their airspeed to within an acceptable range. She dropped one wing low in a smooth turn and circled over DZ Juliet, ensuring the wide clearing was a go for their training drop. Just because nobody was supposed to be out there didn’t mean accidents never happened, so while Blue conducted the visual scan, Twister verified the area was clear on their scopes.
Blue leveled out at one hundred meters. “DZ clear, confirm?”
“Confirmed clear,” Twister said briskly.
“Gunners ready?” Blue tossed a quick glance over her shoulder into the gunner compartment, which was located directly behind the cockpit through an open hatch. Corporals Emi Hayashi and Iolana Hekikia were strapped into harnesses at their Aries Miniguns.
Collectively known as HeyHey, the diminutive door gunners could have been twins, though they weren’t even from the same system, let alone the same planet. Tiny, blue-eyed, and dark-haired, with matching attitudes and all the savage joy when they got to shoot things. They had been less than pleased to miss out on the main training exercise until Blue had briefed them on the necessity of clearing the DZ of any “hostile native fauna.” The instant they learned they’d get to put dummy rounds on target, they’d been all smiles.
HeyHey gave her a simultaneous thumbs up and a verbal, “Ready on the guns.”
A fierce grin spread across Blue’s face. It was time for the fun part. As she lined the Rhino up for a low approach, she felt a slight drag and verified the gunner hatches had fully opened.
As Blue flew the Rhino in a fast pass over the DZ, HeyHey opened up with the Aries Miniguns in tight one-second bursts.
Blue felt as much as heard the guns spitting training rounds. The pilots’ helmets acted as adequate ear protection, but the gunners wore specialized earpieces to ensure they survived their service with their hearing mostly intact.
Mostly being the operative word.
Twister pushed the external camera feed to one of the viewscreens and nodded in satisfaction at the puffs of dirt and vegetation erupting in wide arcs on either side of the dropship’s path. Blue had offset her approach so they were covering the southeast side of the DZ, while Killi flew several thousand meters in trail and on the northwest side to ensure full coverage.
“Looking good.” Twister let out a low chuckle and put a few dummy rounds through their chin-mounted railgun. The crown of a towering, vine-covered tree at the far end of the clearing exploded in a shower of wood chips and greenery. “Railgun checks good.”
Blue smirked. “You know, I thought that tree was looking at us funny.”
“Don’t get cute.” Twister arched a brow. “Drop ain’t over yet.”
“Says the woman blowing up innocent trees,” Blue muttered as she pushed the Rhino into a sharp climbing left turn. She needed to set down in the center of the DZ where 4th Squad would be simulating protecting the science team, while Killi would do a double hot drop on the north and south side of the DZ to allow 5th Squad to set up a perimeter watch. As she set up her approach, she activated the rotation on the engines and smoothly shifted into VTOL mode. Clouds of dust kicked up from the field as they descended, and Blue kept running down the checklist in a practiced rhythm. “Engines locked into vertical position, rate of descent good, gear . . . shit.”
Twister grimaced at the yellow alert flashing in their HUDs but waited for Blue to make the call. Blue cycled the gear again, but the alert didn’t clear. The rear gear had locked into place, but the nose gear refused to deploy. It left Blue with two options. She could abort the landing and circle the field while they ran the gear malfunction checklist, delaying the drop.
Depending on how long it took to sort out their gear issue, it could impact the whole training schedule, which would be less than ideal. It would also impact the promised shore leave, which would not endear her to her legionnaires or Crows.
Her other option was to hot drop her legionnaires, keeping the engines engaged and the nose up and off the ground. Trickier, but well within both the limits of the Rhino and her skillset. Then they could run a diagnostic on the nose gear while flying overwatch above the training area. With any luck, they could clear the issue. If not, they’d simply repeat the two-point landing maneuver when they picked their boys back up at the end of the exercise.
Either option was perfectly legal and acceptable. All of that ran through Blue’s mind in an instant. In the next, Blue made her decision.
“Nose gear malfunction acknowledged, proceeding with hot drop.”
“Copy hot drop.” Twister nodded, her expression giving nothing away, and cleared the alert from their HUDs.
“Carvalho, Ordo, we’re hot dropping,” Blue said over the ops channel. “Got a gear malfunction. I’ll keep the Rhino steady, just get those boys off my ship like it’s last call at the cantina. Copy?”
Landing in VTOL mode was strikingly similar to attempting to balance on a beach ball. Twister monitored their descent, while Blue kept the wings level and the nose at a slightly higher angle than normal. A jolt traveled through the sturdy dropship as the rear wheels hit the ground. Almost before the impact faded, the “ramp opening” alert flashed in her HUD. Carvalho was on his A game today.
Blue focused on keeping the Rhino’s nose in the air, a balancing act aided by the ship’s automatic stabilizer system. Less than a minute passed before Carvalho resealed the ramp and double-clicked over the comm to indicate he was properly secured again.
Blue slid her gaze toward Twister. “Verify cleared for liftoff.”
“Cleared,” Twister said calmly after she’d verified the legionnaires were well away from the Rhino’s engines.
Blue wasted no time in getting them back into the air. As soon as she’d gotten them into an overwatch pattern opposite Bronze Raven Five, the two pilots went through the gear malfunction EP checklist. By their second circuit around the island, the nose gear was working again, though the action was far from smooth.
“Enter a note for maintenance to service all of our gear,” Blue ordered as they closed out the checklist. “If the nose gear is having issues, I want all of them thoroughly checked before we fly again.”
“Done.” For the first time since the gear malfunction alert, Twister smiled. “Good job on the EP.”
Blue tore her gaze from the tossing greenery passing beneath their wings. The horizon split into a partial blue sky and greenish-blue ocean as she nudged them into a wide turn.
“A test?” she asked Twister with a wry grin.
“Nope, but you handled it perfectly.”
Blue flexed her shoulders to shed the tension. Killi had been right. She was ready for her upgrade ride.
Missed the previous snippets? No worries, I got you covered.
Jason Córdova 
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