Starship Troopers Read Free

stretched, getting the kinks out, and looked around . . . then doubled up again and straightened out in a swan dive face down and took a good look. It was night down there, as planned, but infrared snoopers let you size up terrain quite well after you are used to them. The river that cut diagonally through the city was almost below me and coming up fast, shining out clearly with a higher temperature than the land. I didn’t care which side of it I landed on but I didn’t want to land in it; it would slow me down.
    I noticed a dash off to the right at about my altitude; some unfriendly native down below had burned what was probably a piece of my egg. So I fired my first chute at once, intending if possible to jerk myself right off his screen as he followed the targets down in closing range. I braced for the shock, rode it, then floated down for about twenty seconds before unloading the chute—not wishing to call attention to myself in still another way by not falling at the speed of the other stuff around me. It must have worked;
    I wasn’t burned.
    About six hundred feet up I shot the second chute . . . saw very quickly that I was being carried over into the river, found that I was going to pass about a hundred feet up over a flat-roofed warehouse or some such by the river . . . blew the chute free and came in for a good enough if rather bouncy landing on the roof by means of the suit’s jump jets. I was scanning for Sergeant Jelal’s beacon as I hit.
    And found that I was on the wrong side of the river; Jelly’s star showed up on the compass ring inside my helmet far south of where it should have been -- I was too far north. I trotted toward the river side of the roof as I took a range and bearing on the squad leader next to me, found that he was over a mile out of position, called, “Ace! dress your line,” tossed a bomb behind me as I stepped off the building and across the river. Ace answered as I could have expected—Ace should have had my spot but he didn’t want to give up his squad; nevertheless he didn’t fancy taking orders from me.
    The warehouse went up behind me and the blast hit me while I was still over the river, instead of being shielded by the buildings on the far side as I should have been. It darn near tumbled my gyros and I came close to tumbling myself. I had set that bomb for fifteen seconds . . . or had I? I suddenly realized that I had let myself get excited, the worst thing you can do once you’re on the ground. “Just like a drill,” that was the way, just as Jelly had warned me. Take your time and do it right, even if it takes another half second.
    As I hit I took another reading on Ace and told him again to realign his squad. He didn’t answer but he was already doing it. I let it ride. As long as Ace did his job, I could afford to swallow his surliness—for now. But back aboard ship (if Jelly kept me on as assistant section leader) we would eventually have to pick a quiet spot and find out who was boss. He was a career corporal and I was just a term lance acting as corporal, but he was under me and you can’t afford to take any lip under those circumstances. Not permanently.
    But I didn’t have time then to think about it; while I was jumping the river I had spotted a juicy target and I wanted to get it before somebody else noticed it—a lovely big group of what looked like public buildings on a hill. Temples, maybe . . . or a palace. They were miles outside the area we were sweeping, but one rule of a smash & run is to expend at least half your ammo outside your sweep area; that way the enemy is kept confused as to where you actually are -- that and keep moving, do everything fast. You’re always heavily outnumbered; surprise and speed are what saves you.
    I was already loading my rocket launcher while I was checking on Ace and telling him for the second time to straighten up. Jelly’s voice reached me right on top of that on the all-hands circuit: “Platoon! By leapfrog!