Free Just Another Day by Isaac Hooke Page B

others strapped on their own osmium attachments and gathered up the remaining gear. I grabbed an M4 rifle and clipped a loadout of grenades to my belt. The rifles came with an adjustable recoil buffer to dampen the effect of the kickback. I had mine currently dialed down to zero for obvious reasons, but depending on the tactical situation, a slight recoil could actually be good, especially when you were low on jumpjet fuel.
    "Distance to the observation point?" I sent on the fire team channel.
    "Approximately ten klicks, sir," Big Dog replied.
    "Bounding overwatch formation." I split the fire team in half. Big Dog and I would proceed forward a hundred meters, then halt, taking cover. Then Ghost and Trace would "bound" past, stopping a hundred meters ahead of us and dropping. This would be repeated until we reached the observation point. Maybe I was being overly vigilant by assuming this formation, but I always did like to err on the side of caution.
    So yeah.
    Bounding overwatch.
    Spacewalking was always kind of fun. It reminded me of jumping on rocks to cross a creek as a kid. You used this hop-step kind of walk, bouncing forward from one foot to the other, tilting your torso so that your center of mass stayed ahead of you, otherwise you ended up just hopping up and down. And just like crossing slippery rocks on a creek, it was all too easy to lose your footing and fall.
    Ahead, the observation point was painted on my HUD, this flashing blue dot on the horizon that never seemed to get any bigger.
    After about two hours advancing in the bounding overwatch formation, Big Dog sent an alert. "Eightball has reached the observation point five klicks from the base. Everything checks out so far. Looks like Intel actually lived up to its name this time."
    "Good," I sent. "Maintain formation."
    After a few minutes we passed into the light side of the asteroid, and deactivated our helmet lamps. I didn't feel any hotter — the suits were good at maintaining a constant temperature.
    When we arrived at the observation point, we took cover in the craggy surface of the asteroid. I focused on the distant base on the horizon and activated the optical zoom in my facemask. Shiny, dome-like structures filled my vision. Each structure was connected by aluminum-can shaped passageways. According to the target information report, the skeletal frames of each module were made of titanium, while the outer shells were comprised of ten centimeter thick layers of Kevlar and other ceramic fabrics meant to absorb impacts from tiny meteors. These shells were coated with thermal blankets that deflected excessive solar radiation, which was why they appeared so shiny.
    So, this was one of Mao Sing Ming's few known ports of calls. The SK government sanctioned these privateers. This base was in protected space. He'd never expect an attack here, in home territory. His guard would be down.
    That was the theory anyway. Why then did the drone detect cameras setup all over the base, along with laser tripwires? That's something military intelligence had neglected to pass our way. We couldn't get much closer, not without setting off an alarm. Nor could the HS3 drone, which hovered nearby.
    "Do we have confirmation on the HPT?" I sent. HPT stood for high-payoff target.
    "HPT is en route, but hasn't arrived yet," Trace sent. In addition to sniper, he was also our communicator this time round, and carried all our communications equipment in a rucksack strapped on above his jetpack.
    "All right. Comm silence. Gonna be a while."
    Communications sent to HQ were designed to look like background radiation. But if you sent too many messages back at once from the same place, it became obvious that something more was going on.
    I settled in, because now the real waiting began. We couldn't do anything until the target arrived.
    We took turns at watch, two of us observing the base while the other two slept. The jumpsuits took care of our external bodily functions, flushing waste