Bill 7 - the Galactic Hero Read Free

of the Glorious Dead. If, by any mistake, any of you happens to survive, he will be given a medal and a twelve-hour pass.”
    The captain looked at the paper with disgust, then hurled it aside. “Yeah, yeah. There's a lot more bowb about glory and patriotism and so on. Blah, blah, blah. Now here's your mission.”
    The recorded image wavered and was replaced by a new one, in color. Some of the troopers actually looked up at it and almost started paying some attention. Only because one of the bodyguards, a blonde with long, flowing hair, and an open blouse, leaned over Kadaffi's shoulders and blew kisses at the troopers along with revealing a fine display of her cleavage. His eyes crossed as he tried to see the view — then he snapped back to attention.
    "We, and of course I mean you, should be reaching the drop zone in a few minutes. There's a big battle down there. You don't need to know where it is or what it's about. Other than that we're coming in behind the Chinger lines in a sneak suicide attack. You're a diversion from the main attack. All you have to do is get on the ground and shoot everything that moves. Try not to kill each other, although it won't matter much.
    “You there, Trooper Bill — you're the point man. You other guys will follow Bill forward into glorious combat. Introduce yourself, Bill.”
    Bill raised a reluctant hand; no one bothered to look.
    “Thanks, Bill. I want you all to know that I'll be behind you all the way. Far behind. Of course, I'll do it all by remote control from right here, but someone has to get back to tell the story of your courage, right? Right.” The blonde ran her hand through Kadaffi's hair. “So long, loyal Troopers.” He yawned and turned away, already forgetting them.
    The picture blinked out, then blinked back on. It was almost the same, except the blonde had two more buttons undone. Kadaffi scratched his head and tried to take his eyes off the view. “I forgot to tell you that you better get ready to jump. You might not get much warning.” The wall faded back to its own airsick yellow.
    All around Bill, troopers were fastening their helmets and gloves, sealing their face plates, rechecking their ammo, writing their wills, emptying their stomachs.
    They were in some planet's atmosphere now because they could hear the sounds of combat outside the transport. Judging by the explosions, lots of very unfortunate things were happening not very far away. Some of the blasts were very large. Some things were blowing up. In fact, lots of things were blowing up, some of them pretty close.
    The transport started swerving and swaying and twisting and banking to stay away from the anti-aircraft fire. Which was a good idea, only it did not work very well. For suddenly there was no floor any more.
    In that first instant Bill hoped that the floor had been shot away, not retracted. Because that might mean that Captain Kadaffi was not safe and might be wasted along with the rest of them.
    Then Bill was plummeting through space.
    He screamed for a while, but it didn't seem to help. He kept on plummeting. He went through “Oh bowb, oh bowb!” and “I don't wanna die!” and “Heeeeelp!” and even “Mommy!”, but he just kept falling. He tried activating the antigravity unit in his suit, but that was linked to the same remote control as the weapons, back up in Captain Kadaffi's hot little hand. Or cold little hand since he might be dead and that would be the end of that.
    At last Bill tried looking down.
    Well, it wasn't as bad an idea as he'd thought it might be. He was still plummeting, but he couldn't see the ground, only clouds. It didn't really feel like falling, except for the wind, and he could hear that, but not feel it. Sealed in the suit he couldn't feel much of anything. He could see out the face plate, and he could smell the sweat — and was that blood? — of the last guy who'd worn it, but he couldn't feel anything.
    He looked around and saw the rest of the