Free Steel World by B. V. Larson Page A

interceptor fire,” I said to him, grinning. “Don’t rust your armor. That’s legion property.”
    For some reason, this made him mad. I’d encountered this sort of thing on many occasions. Splats were constantly teased and expected to take it. I did so, but I always took the time to dish a little back whenever I saw the opportunity. This seemed to anger most of my seniors.
    “You don’t know anything,” Sargon told me with conviction. “This is exactly the time to be nervous.”
    “Why’s that?” I asked him.
    “Listen up, McGill—what kind of name is that, anyway? What are you, from Scotland?”
    “Georgia.”
    “Whatever. Listen up, you want to live through your first jump?”
    “I was planning on it.”
    “Then get out of this lifter fast. It won’t go all the way down, it will toss us out over the target. But that’s a good thing. The best and earliest way for any legionnaire to achieve perma-death is right here, right now. This lifter has all your data uploaded. If you want to come back in one piece from this campaign, or get revived, the lifter can’t blow up while you’re in it.”
    I frowned. It seemed like someone was giving me actual information for once. But considering the source, I wasn’t sure that I should trust it. I wasn’t accustomed to such treatment. Maybe it was the reality of what we were about to face in the next few minutes that had prompted the weaponeer to give me survival advice.
    “What happens when we reach the surface?” I asked.
    “Then everything is automatically downloaded to ground command. At that point, it will be a lot harder to get permed.”
    Perma-death. That was the one thing we all feared, deep down. Who hadn’t, in the vast history of warfare? In my lucky legion, no one seemed to mind the idea of being torn apart in Earth’s service. But perma-death was different. No revival, no reconstruction—it was the old-fashioned kind of death, the type that lasted forever.
    The ship shook again, and this time there was a new development. A puff of vapor shot out of the curved metal roof over our heads. The puff came inward for a fraction of a moment, showering us with sparks. Then, the vapor vanished, sucked up into the hole that had appeared.
    “Depressurization!” shouted the weaponeer next to me. “Seal up, everybody!”
    Sargon linked with Veteran Harris and reported the hit. It had to be a chunk of shrapnel. There wasn’t any other explanation. I frowned in concern. This shouldn’t be happening. Nothing like this was in the briefing.
    I looked up at the hole and my computer systems automatically went to work, analyzing and recording it. Our helmets did more than protect our brains. There was a full set of computer displays inside. The heads-up display, or HUD, overlaid whatever we looked at with computerized data concerning the item in question. Our eyes were tracked, and whatever we focused on was analyzed and anything the suit’s computer knew about it would be immediately displayed. Viewed externally, the sophisticated helmets were a cross between a biker’s protective gear and something a deep sea diver might have worn a century ago. But from the inside, it looked like a flight simulator.
    The computer listed “hull breach” as the number one analysis bullet point. There was a small suggestion box at the bottom of my faceplate that recommended patching it immediately. The recommendation wasn’t very useful in this instance, as I wasn’t qualified, nor did I have any gear for the job. I stayed in my seat.
    Veteran Harris came back down the row and stopped at the leak with what looked like a plunger. The silver tip moved like liquid and looked gelatinous, however, as if it was made of flexible metals. It melted into the gap and sealed it.
    The old man gave me the finger and walked away. I stared after him, bemused.
    “That guy hates me, but he seems to be looking out for me at the same time,” I told the weaponeer.
    “Just don’t get between