Steel Walls and Dirt Drops Read online

  Steel Walls and Dirt Drops

  By

  Alan Black

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The Publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  STEEL WALLS AND DIRT DROPS

  Published by arrangement with the author

  Printing History

  2009, 2014 Copyright by Alan Black

  Cover Design: Amy Black

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or digital format without permission from the copyright holder. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  ISBN-13: 978-1496028761

  ISBN-10: 1496028767

  Library of Congress Number: 1-1234311241

  Dedication:

  I dedicate this novel to my wonderful wife Duann; the real Chief Master Sergeant Duann Elizabeth (nee Brown) Black USAF RET.

  Acknowledgements:

  Thanks to the real people who inhabit these pages and have helped me visualize the characters and their stories: Duann Elizabeth (nee Brown) Black,

  John Cochran,

  Clarice (Clancy) Preston,

  Tammie (nee Qualls) Wright,

  Brianna (nee Wright) Morin,

  Bennett Beaudry

  And

  Richard Jackson.

  Thanks to my beta readers,

  Steve Black,

  Duann Black,

  And

  Tom Brennan.

  Their help and insight has been invaluable for this re-publication and correction of an old novel.

  More information about Alan Black at

  www.alanblackauthor.com

  https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alan-Black-Paperback-Writer/259372705810

  Contents

  Title

  Legalese

  Dedication

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Cast of Characters

  About the Author

  Other Books

  Praise for Other Books

  Chapter One

  Newly promoted Third-Level Commander Hamisha Ann McPherson stepped off the space station slide-walk. She moved light and easy for a big woman, but a worried expression flashed across her none-too-attractive face. The Allied Protective Expeditionary Services (APES) normally promoted leaders from within the ranks of their existing unit. She wondered what kind of fouled-up unit needed an outside commander. Surely, a unit this size would have someone qualified with the desire to move up the command track. How bad could it be if the APES had to promote a newly minted second-level to third to fill the slot? What kind of nightmare unit would it have to be to assign a second-level who had just gotten her whole command killed on their last drop?

  Her new command was a hundred meters away. She was eager to begin in spite of her mounting apprehension. The gate and guard were well within sight despite the curvature of the station bulkheads. It was a huge station and the curve was gradual compared to many smaller stations she had visited.

  Misha was worried. She was not worried about her own abilities, but more than a little uneasy about what she was walking into. Distaining the use of the yellow and black striped caution handrail, she walked to the tarmac side of the Allied Mobile Space Forces (AMSF) echo deck on Heaven’s Gate Space Station in orbit around Heaven Three in the Heaven System. For the hundredth time since leaving her home world of DropSix, she wondered why it was called the tarmac side. The spacecraft parked there sat snuggled into hangers around the station rings with their back ends hanging into the nothing of space. Nothing was nothing; it certainly wasn’t tarmac.

  She stopped in front of a view port overlooking the military section of Heaven’s Gate. It was the last view port before coming to the entry gate leading to her new command. She read the small warning sign just above the view port controls. “FOD kills.” Misha gave a mental shake of her head. “Vacuum-breathers!” she exclaimed. She had seen this particular warning sign posted somewhere at every AMSF base she had been on or passed through, including her own four-year tour of duty before joining the Allied Protective Expeditionary Services (APES). In all of that time, and in the eight years since, no one she asked had been able to explain why it was called tarmac or what FOD even looked like. However, since FOD warnings were everywhere, she knew she would do her best to avoid it at all costs, if she ever saw it.

  Misha spun the dial on the view port controls setting the opacity level to the highest possible filter. Turning the 'dark on' changed the port into a mirror. Slowly, she smoothed her hands down the front of her light-gray dress tunic. Straightening the seams brought the tunic's blood red trim into line with the matching red stripe on the trousers stuffed into her soft-soled jump sneakers. The tunic didn’t have buttons to button, collars to straighten or pockets to close, so her adjustments did not take long.

  Still, Misha let her fingers linger over the red triangle of her new rank. She hadn’t even had time to get used to being a second-level commander before getting bumped up another notch. Reaching third-level in the APES was quite an accomplishment for a woman who barely looked out of her teens, although she had just passed her thirtieth standard birthday. Her youthful looks were thanks to GerinAid, Delta Corporation’s anti-aging drugs, more than any family inherited trait.

  She smiled remembering how in only eight years in the APES she had earned
her triangles. Her smile faded quickly to a frown as her fingers slid down to the row of ribbons high across her left chest. If service tradition had not required that she wear her awards and decorations, she would have shipped them home to DropSix to let her baby sister’s new daughter play with the colored bits of metal and silk.

  The top ribbon was the Aries Award. It sat alone on a row of its own. It took its name from old Earth's Grecian god of war. The Aries was the highest combat medal possible in the Allied Systems. Sixth-Level Commander John Cochran personally presented the commendation to Misha. It gave her a small shiver recalling that the top commander of the Allied Protective Expeditionary Services took the time to present the award to a lowly APE.

  “Presented,” Misha reminded herself. “I did not earn it. I just did what I had to do, dammit! It belongs to those good APES on Guinjundst who did not come back and are gone forever. Gone," she thought. "The whole squad Gone; with a capital G. Hellfire, might as well capitalize the whole thing: GONE."

  Most of the APES who dropped dirt on Guinjundst had not come home. Her own third-level commander and nine other second-level commanders died along with the rest of the unit. The Sixth had been very specific to point out that while she was a new second-level commander; she rallied the survivors and took the battlefield back from the non-human Binders. She had turned what surely could have been humanity’s first defeat against the Binders into a significant and decisive victory.

  In a private ceremony afterwards, the Sixth shook Misha’s hand telling her the Aries Award was as much for the invaluable information she had brought back as it was for her combat record. He had tacked on her third-level command triangle with his own hand. Misha knew the information she brought back was now highly classified. She was certain no APE under the rank of fourth-level, except herself and those pitifully few Guinjundst veterans knew the real story of Guinjundst. She knew very few people in all the Allied Systems knew the truth.

  Misha shook her head to try clearing the mental pictures of men and women who had not come home from that deadly dirt drop. So many APES died so she could have a pretty ribbon to wear on her chest. She would rather have her old squad back. However, she knew that wasn’t going to happen. Dead is dead.

  Today, as the new commander of the 1392nd, she would take leadership of a squad of ten troopers, plus gain command over ten second-level commanders, each with their own squad of ten troopers. It was a larger unit than she was used to commanding and it held more unknowns than she liked.

  Misha studied her reflection in the view port taking in the whole picture. She was not shy about her size anymore, not like she had been when she had first left DropSix. She stood 6 feet 5 inches tall. That was short for DropSix. She was shorter than any adult in her family, including her mother and her baby sister. She weighed in at 325 pounds standard, but looked like she weighed less; much, much less.

  She smiled at how often people had been fooled into thinking she weighed about 245 pounds. People from normal range gravity worlds sometimes underestimate the muscular density of heavy-worlders. DropSix was a 1.16 standard gravity world and over the generations the children of DropSix colonists developed a dense musculature with the heart and lung capacity to quickly pump oxygen to those dense muscles.

  “Still,” she thought, “if anyone is surprised at my size it is their own fault, be they training partners, dance partners, sex partners or just barroom brawlers.” She chuckled inwardly at the thought of dance or sex partners. There were few of those, but it still didn’t hurt to think of the possibilities.

  Misha knew anyone who looked close enough would see she was from a heavy world. The eyes staring back at her in the view port mirror were almost black, with specs of bright blue, a gift from her Scottish heritage. The red rim surrounding the cornea of her eyes was a specific trait of growing up on a heavy world. It was a dead give-away to anyone who took the time to look closely.

  “Not that anyone has looked that closely in a long time,” Misha thought as she smiled to herself. She scanned her face out of habit. She knew she wasn’t beautiful, pretty, cute or even average. Her features were okay and all in the right place, but she had always felt things just did not seem to come together. She had nice eyes and a nice nose, but somehow they did not seem to meld into a pleasant and harmonious union.

  “Maybe I need a new hairdo?” Her hair was jet black, cut in the standard grunt cut. She shaved the left side of her head from front-to-back and brim-to-nape for ease in attaching the control nodes in her armored helmet. This cut gave new meaning to the age-old military phrase: high, wide and tight. She cut the rest of her hair anywhere it might fall into her face or over the shaved area. She shook her head as the rest of her hair settled into place in various shaggy lengths normally hacked off whenever it got too long. It was very duty-functional, but it wasn’t designed to attract members of the opposite sex.

  “Well, it is time to saddle up,” she said, blowing a long breath through gritted teeth. She spun the view port dial back to open view and stepped on the slide-walk for the last hundred meters to the military section’s guarded gate. She was more worried about her new unit than she had ever been when facing an enemy in combat. In combat, the worst that could happen was that you died. If this unit was as snafu as she imagined, then it might be worse than dying, she might fail. She only hoped she could handle this outfit with a more delicate hand than she used in battle.

  Chapter Two

  Trooper One Donnellson of Foxtrot Squad frowned at the beer in front of him. It was only his second brew and it was a freebie to boot, since the owner of the beer had passed out shortly after buying the beer and was even now under the table. He really wanted to drink it, but he knew he shouldn’t. Second-Level Commander Race Jackson, his squad leader, would tear a wide strip off his backside if he so much as sniffed it. It did seem to make sense not to drink too much since he was technically on duty. Then again, half of the troopers in the bar were on duty.

  He thought, “Still, Race put me here to keep an eye on the slide-walk for our new third-level commander. She isn’t due until tomorrow, but then Race doesn’t trust anyone above second-level.” Donnellson understood the feeling because he did not much trust anyone at any rank above trooper. Donnellson snorted to himself thinking about the last third-level the old ninety-second had endured. The man was a full-fledged domestic-level waste of air. No wonder so many troopers were dogging it at the Monkey Hole, on duty or off.

  He thought, “Maybe I can chug this one really fast when Race isn’t looking, just like I did the first beer a few minutes ago.”

  “Hanging dirt! There she goes,” Trooper One Sigget Donnellson shouted over the noise.

  Second Jackson spun around just in time to catch sight of a woman’s back as the slide-walk moved her around the space station’s gentle curve and out of his sight.

  “Did ya see her, Race?” Donnellson asked excitedly. “It has to be her. Big woman! A damn amazon in uniform and I swear I saw the triangles of a Third. I think it looked like her pix on the vids download last week.”

  “Crap in the bag! Then it’s probably her,” Jackson affirmed.

  He swung his gaze around The Monkey Hole. As usual, the barroom was crowded. It was a favorite location for APES, the ground combat troops for the Allied Systems. It was as common a bar as on any other space station catering to military clientele. There were few decorations or adornments, fewer tables and even fewer chairs along the pre-fabricated plasticine bar covering the whole length of the back bulkhead. It did have plenty of standing room. An oddity of station architecture left the ceiling little more than a gaping hole through three decks. It was completely open where the fourth wall would have been as it faced the slide-walk. That openness made it particularly popular with APES. These men and women spent most of their working lives confined to a station, in transit on troop transports, or encased in the hard-shelled APES combat suits. It was the most non-claustrophobic hangout possible on Heaven’s Gate. At least, it was th
e most non-claustrophobic hangout that served alcohol this close to the AMSF hangers. As usual, the Monkey Hole was jammed with APES from all over the station. Most were stationed on parked spacecraft but a few were just passing through.

  Race Jackson knew he and Donnellson weren’t the only APES in the bar deployed on the AMSF Spacecraft Kiirkegaard. He finally spotted Second-Level Commander Takki-Homi. “Taks,” Jackson shouted over the noise of the bar. “Hey, Deuce Taks! We got company knocking at the hatch.”

  Heads swiveled and bodies crushed toward the open space between the bar and the slide-walk. Voices shouted, “Where?” “I don’t see anybody special.” “Who?” “Is that her? The hero of Hydra?” It was well noised about that the 1392nd was getting a new third-level commander. What made the gossip particularly juicy was that this commander was a certified, battle-hardened hero.

  Jackson snorted and shouted over the din. “Shut your frakking pie-holes. It was the Battle of Guinjundst in the Hydra Sector, you morons, and yeah it was most likely her. Donnellson spotted her on the slide-walk.” He turned to Takki-Homi and asked, “What do you think, Deuce? Can we beat her back to the Kiirkegaard?”

  Second Takki-Homi nodded slowly. He tapped the communications unit tagged onto his breast pocket glass-pack data unit turning their unit’s comm gear on and opening up a channel. With a little luck, their new boss would not have slaved her comms to their unit’s frequency. “Unit 1392: McPherson’s Second Tier, listen up. This is Second Takki-Homi,” Taks spoke swiftly, broadcasting to everyone in the 121 trooper outfit. “To the APE on the gate: The new third-level commander is on her way. Do a slow stall, don’t get yourself in a jam with the boss, but try to slow her down. Do a triple bip warning on the comm when she gets past you. Vark, are you on board?”

  Takki-Homi heard a single bip from the comm unit. The bip told him that squad leader Second-Level “Vark” Aardmricksdottir was listening and on board the transport. She knew she did not need to take mission-critical time speaking.