Free Jump Pay by Rick Shelley Page A

of any sort. There was, in particular, none of the moss that had proved so treacherous. But there would be no cover at all for the 13th once they got clear of the rocks.
    —|—
    Ezra Frain marked one Schlinal helmet in a shallow crater. Very little of the helmet showed behind the soldier's wire rifle. When Ezra first spotted it, there was only a thin sliver of the helmet showing, perhaps two centimeters high in the center. And no rifle. Ezra waited. The Schlinal soldier came up just far enough to squeeze off a short burst and then ducked again. The pattern repeated. The man moved a little to one side or the other before he came up each time.
    "I'll get you yet," Ezra said after shooting at the vanishing helmet for the third time. He slipped a fresh spool of wire into his Armanoc, saving the old spool. There were still a few meters of wire on it, too much to waste.
    Ezra held his breath, silently counting off the seconds since the helmet had disappeared. Fourth squad moved forward and took new positions. "Let's go," Ezra told his squad.
    He started forward without looking to make sure that his five remaining men were moving with him. He knew that they would be, no matter how frightened they might be. While he crawled to the next slight cover, Ezra kept his eyes on the crater ahead. That helmet had stayed down longer than usual this time. Any second now...
    When the helmet popped up the next time, Ezra raised himself to his knees and held down the trigger on his zipper, ready to pour an entire spool of wire into the helmet and the lip of ground in front of it if he had to. More of the helmet appeared, pushed back and up as wire sprayed off of it. Wire might not damage a helmet, but the impact would be felt by the man wearing it. Ezra extended himself, getting one foot out in front of him, lifting a little more, trying for a slightly better angle of fire.
    Wire from at least two Heggie rifles found Ezra as the man in the crater came up and went down. Ezra didn't see the Heggie fall, dead. More than fifty snips of wire had cut into Ezra at the same time. Some had found the gaps in his net armor. The rest had penetrated it.
    Al Bergon saw Ezra go down and stopped firing immediately. He crawled sideways to the squad leader. Before Al got to him though, Ezra Frain was too far gone for help. His eyes were open, expressionless, as Al slid him back to better cover.
    Then the eyes closed and Ezra was dead.
    —|—
    Joe Baerclau swallowed hard when he heard the news from Al Bergon. After acknowledging the medic's report, Joe switched channels to talk to Mort Jaiffer.
    "You've got first squad now, Professor. Ezra's dead. We'll run first squad as a single fire team for now, reorganize when we get a chance."
    On the other end of that call, Mort squeezed his eyes shut, hard, for just a second. "I hear you." Mort glanced toward where Ezra had fallen. Al had already moved back into his place in the line.
    "Be careful, Prof," Joe said.
    "Yeah." Then Mort switched to the squad frequency. "Let's spread out to cover the gap," he said after confirming that they had lost Ezra. "And keep your heads down." There was always continuity. The gaps in the table of organization always slid to the bottom of the unit. Whenever an officer or noncom went down, there was always someone to replace him.
    In the TO at least.
    —|—
    Major General Kleffer Dacik and his headquarters staff had landed twenty minutes after the first assault waves. The general had established his command post west of the landing zones for the attack on Site Alpha. With two concurrent operations going on, Dacik had plenty to keep him occupied. During the first hours, he left operational control of the attack on Site Alpha to Colonel Stossen, the senior regimental commander, and then—after Stossen became a casualty—to Colonel Napier Foss, commander of the 8th SAT. Foss had only recently been promoted to full colonel, and he was new in command of the 8th, but he was the next senior