"No, sir," Tammie said, confused. "You needed the supplies, didn't you?"

"Sure, but only because we light loaded for the first movement," Mike said. "The main purpose to this mission is because the next one is tougher. You needed the experience and the Keldara have never operated like this with helos. They've flown in them but never been resupplied by them. I wanted both groups to get comfortable so when the s.h.i.t hit the fan neither they nor you would freak. Tomorrow's mission isway more important. And if you have to supply us on theother side of the mountains, well that's going to be hairy as s.h.i.t. So get confident. Fast."

"Got it, sir," Kacey said.

"Looks like time for me to odie," Mike said. "I'll see you in a few days. Keep the faith."

"Yes, sir," Tammie replied as Mike backed out past the supplies. "Is it just me or is that guy, like, charismatic as h.e.l.l?"

"I've got sixty hours in this bird, as of this mission," Kacey said. "And I'm flying a night, tactical, NOE.

You think I'd do that for justanybody ?"

"So when are you going to nail him?" Tammie asked.

"I probably won't get the chance," Kacey replied. "d.a.m.nit. You know the blonde we got as load?"

"Yeah," Tammie said.

"Girlfriend."

"What?" Tammie snapped. "Doesn't he haveenough women?"

"Long story..."

"h.e.l.lo, Viktor," Gretchen said as she lifted the first box out of the door of the helicopter. The pilot had not stopped the rotors so there was very much dust but that was why she had been given goggles.

"Gretchen?" Viktor said, surprised. He took the box of rations, though, and tossed it to the next man in line. "What areyou doing here?"

"Somebody had to unload the helicopters, yes?" Gretchen said, tossing him another box. "The new crew chief said we may be trained as crewmen. We are privates, now. The pilots are women, why not?"

"What does Father Makanee think of this?" Viktor asked, grinning.

"He sulks, what else?" Gretchen said, grinning back. "Women are for cooking and making babies and beer. Not for flying around in helicopters. Much less in combat. Father Kulcyanov has blessed us, though, and our mission. We are soldiers now."

"Are you going to be in combat?" Viktor asked, worried.

"The crewman mans the machine-gun," Gretchen said, gesturing to the door gun. "You tell me."

"Hopefully not," Viktor replied. "I'd hate to be at your funeral. I would hate to have to deal with... Does theKildar know about this?"

"I don't know," Gretchen said, shrugging. "But I think he likes strong women, yes? So this is good. As to funerals, I think I would hate to be atyours , brother. So I agree to take care and you do so as well."

"I'll try, sis," Viktor replied.

"d.a.m.n."

Dr. Arensky looked at the rip in his shirt and shook his head.

"I wish they'd given us ahammer . There are nails sticking out all over. That's the fourth rip I've gotten in my clothes!"

"For a scientist, you sure are clumsy," Gregor chuckled from the corner.

Arensky had taken to walking up and down the small room whenever he wasn't puttering with his cultures or cooking. Both he and Gregor were putting on weight from the latter and he'd decided to fight it by pacing. Gregor hadn't argued or complained unless he neared the room's sole door. Unfortunately, therewere several nails sticking out of the roughly constructed wall. And he'd managed to findall of them.

"Is there any way you could get me a needle and thread?" Arensky asked, fingering the tear.

"I'll see what I can do," Gregor said with a shrug. "Don't tell me you can sew as well?"

"Who else was going to fix our clothes?" Arensky asked. "Oh,Marina learned eventually. But I didn't get paid enough to buy clothes just because a collar was worn out or a sleeve ripped. This shirt is nearly ten years old, it's been mended, even rebuilt, many times. I suppose you can't even call it the same shirt anymore."

"You are a wonder, doc," Gregor said, his eyes still closed. "I'll get you the needle. I need my socks darned."

Chapter Twenty-Five.

"Fuenf minuten!" the loadmaster yelled, holding up five fingers.

So much for "an English speaking crew", Captain Guerrin thought. Thepilots spoke English, but the only language he and the Ukrainian loadmaster had in common was German. Guerrin had spent several tours inGermany in the course of his career and picked up the language readily. He should have concentrated on Ukrainian.

The good news was that the military attache, whodid speak Ukrainian and had been a Hercy pilot upon a time, was along as a pa.s.senger. He'd smoothed things out quite a bit and been really helpful with figuring out the slightly different configuration on this bird.

The AN-70s were brand new aircraft, the first new aircraft produced byUkraine since the dissolution of theSoviet Union . So new the two the Rangers were using were the first the Ukrainians, themselves, had been able to afford.

The original design process had started back in the '80s, intended by the Soviet military as a replacement for the by then venerable fleet of AN-12 Cubs. With the breakup of theSoviet Union and the accompanying economic disruptions production of the first prototype was halted then started then halted several times. Finally, in 1995 a prototype was completed and entered testing. Unfortunately, on one of it's first tests it collided with its chase plane and crashed, killing all seven of its crew.

However, the AN-70 was "the plane that wouldn't die." Antonov produced another prototype in 1997 and continued testing with the first production planes coming off the lines, finally, in 1999.

Produced primarily for short-range, high-capacity hauling in underdeveloped countries the AN-70 was a turbo-prop, short-take-off-and-landing bird similar in many respects to the C-130 if considerably larger with a maximum payload of 130,000 kilograms or 100 jumpers vs. 20,000 kg or 64 jumpers. It also had one of the most advanced designs of any cargo aircraft in the world with significant use of composites as well as a very high end avionics suite.

Compared to even the newest generation of Hercules', it was a thoroughbred next to a cart horse.

Among other things, it flew more like a fighter than a "trash-hauler."

There was also a s.h.i.t-load of room for the jumpers. They had a hundred and thirty jumpers with them.

They could have, would have, cut a few if all they had were a couple of C-130s. As it was, if the mission hadn't been so high level cla.s.sified, they could have taken twenty or thirty "strap-hangers" and still rattled around like peas in a pod.

"STAND UP!" he shouted at the nearest jumper, flashing the same five fingers.

All through the aircraft the Rangers started struggling to their feet. Given that they had a rucksack over a hundred pounds in weight on their knees and a parachute on their back, it wasn't the easiest maneuver in the world. On the other hand, they'd all done it dozens of times so they were up pretty quick.

"HOOK UP!" Guerrin shouted to the lead jumper, making a hooking sign in the air, then did so himself, albeit to the inboard cable.

Four cables ran down the interior of the aircraft, two about a foot from the skin, the "outboard" cables, and two about a foot apart running down the middle, the "inboard" cables. Jumpers hooked to the outboard cables, jumpmasters to the inboard.

Guerrin secured the cotter pin through his static line cable connector and then caught the eye of the lead jumper.

"CHECK STATIC LINE!" A sign of yanking on the static line.

Check to make sure you're hooked up, check that the opening was "outboard" so just in case it jumped open, against all reason, you'd still have your chute pull out of the bag. Check the pin, check to make sure the line wasn't around anything. If the static line got under your arm, for example, you would suddenly have a piece of nylon rope cutting into your bicep under pressure and screaming by at over a hundred miles per hour. In any airborne unit you saw the guys with "static line arm."

Getting it around your neck was worse. You didn't see them much after the jump. Maybe at the memorial service.

"CHECK EQUIPMENT!" A pound on the chest like Tarzan.

He and the a.s.sistant jumpmaster checked each other cursorily. Honestly, it was all Pentagon safety bulls.h.i.t. You're jumping it, you'd better have checked it. But you had to make the show.

"SOUND OFF FOR EQUIPMENT CHECK!" Lean forward with hand to ear.

The cry was repeated then from the front of the bird the troops sounded off, coming down in a string.

Each would yell "Okay" in the ear of the jumper in front of them and give him a slap on the a.s.s. The slap was necessary because it was loud as h.e.l.l inside a bird with the door open. The last one, the lead jumper, Specialist Serris, leaned forward and gave him an "Okay" sign and a big grin.

"ALL OTAY DUMPMATTAH!".

Christ, he'd told that jokeonce . Guerrin was prior service. He'd done time in the Rangers as an enlisted then gotten out and gone civvie. It was only after 9/11 that he'd come back in, riding an OCS ticket, a few contacts and some luck into a Ranger commander slot.

But "back in the day" as they said, Eddie Murphy was still on Sat.u.r.day Night Live and doing his Buckwheat routine. Thus the "accent." They did it all the time on jumps, just for s.h.i.ts and giggles.

He'd told a squad that just f.u.c.kingonce . So much for "opening up to the troops."

"DOOR CHECK!" he shouted at the Ukrainian load master, pointing at the door. The h.e.l.l if he could remember the German for that.

The loadmaster opened the door and the captain stepped to the opening. He took a good footing then grabbed the door edges and began his check. There were a lot of ways for a static line jump to f.u.c.k up and airborne and Ranger units had managed all of them at one point or another. One of the real killers was having a rough or sharp spot on the door edge. On the leading edge, it meant a cut hand, no big deal. On the trailing edge, though, it could mean a cut static line. And then, well, you had your reserve but bottomline you were f.u.c.ked. Pull your reserve, dump your gear and hope like h.e.l.l you didn't hittoo hard.

Modern "steerable" parachutes were designed to drop a standard-weight jumper at nine feet per second. The problem being that even nine feet per second was d.a.m.ned fast when it was you hitting the ground. About ten percent of the jumpers in any drop, even in training, got injured on impact with the cold, hard earth.

Reserve chutes dropped you at a "standard"seventeen feet per second.

He'd hit with a reserve once. It wasn't something he wanted to experience again. So he checkedh.e.l.l out of the door.

But the Ukrainians, thank G.o.d, knew what they were doing. The molding around the door was as fresh as right out of the factory. Well, okay, itwas darned near fresh from the factory. There wasn'tanything wrong with the door.

Door checked he leaned out and looked forward. There were still mountains in the way but he'd seen the approach maps; they were going to be looking at mountains right up until the jump. No problem. The Ranger motto is "The Whole World Is A Drop Zone." The area they were going into was actuallymuch better than their usual training drops. The stone walls were going to be interesting, but that's why they had steerable chutes.

He could see an opening in the mountains, though. Probably their valley. Which meant they wereclose .

He ducked back in and looked at the jumpmaster who held up two fingers.

"ZWEI MINUTEN!".

"TWO MINUTES!".

"WHOOF! WHOOF! WHOOF!...".

Guerrin shook his head again and leaned back out. The troops had also picked up that he was a UGA graduate. So it naturally became "Bravo Bulldogs." On a level he should be proud, it was a sign the troops thought well of him. But at moments like this it was a pain.

He could see the valley now. They werehigh . The birds were going to have to drop like a stone to get them down to anything jumpable. For that matter he noticed the air was pretty d.a.m.ned thin; it was a bit hard to breath.

He popped back in and looked at Serris, hoping he could get this across.

"HANG ON," he yelled, suiting words to actions by grabbing a stanchion by the door. "WE'RE DROPPING!" He made a motion with his hand pointed down, like an aircraft in a dive.

Serris looked blank for a moment then nodded, grabbing at one of the folded up seats with the hand not holding a static line and shouting to the guy behind him.

"Dreizig seconds!" the loadmaster shouted.

"THIRTY SECONDS!" Guerrin screamed. "HOLD THE f.u.c.k ON!"

Whether the word got back or not, Guerrin saw virtually everyone grabbing something just before the nose of the bird tipped over. And it was adive , a hard one.

"HOOOOOOOO-WAAAAAAAH!".

The bird rang with the cry and Guerrin had to grin, even with what felt like his entire last month's meals coming up in his throat. He could feel his feet half leaving the ground. The pilots were really having fun, that was for sure. Oh, h.e.l.l, face it, they wereall having fun. Even if this was an admin drop itfelt like combat, coming in in a "friendly nation's" bird, nose down and screaming at the DZ. It felt f.u.c.kinghot .

Guerrin leaned out and he could see they were right on the DZ. Still diving.

"Zehn Sekunden!"

"Serris!" he shouted at the lead jumper. "Standin the door!"

f.u.c.k the new regs. The way they were maneuvering Serriscouldn't just stand up. He was going to be lucky to make it to the door without sprawling on his face. He needed something to hang onto and theold way, standing in the door, grabbing the edges, was going to work better.

Guerrin took another look out and could see they were flashing over some small town stuck in a tiny valley. Just out the door, practically on the same level as they were jumping, was some sort of castle.

f.u.c.kingcool .

He grabbed Serris' hand and practicallydragged him to the door, slapping the hand onto the trailing edge as the bird leveled out, hard. Just as it did, the light flashed green.

"GO!".

Serris bailed followed by the stick but Guerrin kept his eyes out the door, keeping count at the same time. There were mountains in their way, coming up fast. He started to raise a hand and then did so as the red light came on.

"HANG ON!" he screamed, grabbing the new lead jumper's risers as the plane banked up. The jumper, a sergeant from third platoon, lurched into him but stayed on his feet.

"Stand by!" Guerrin called, pointing to the stanchion on the forward side of the bird's troop door and shoving the sergeant to it. There was no way he could just stand in the middle of the open area, any more than Serris could have.

Sixteen out on his side. They might get more on the second pa.s.s. Maybe less, probably more.