Screamer by Jason Halstead

Vitalis
    Part 4: Screamer
    By Jason Halstead
    ©2012
     
    All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
     
    This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
    For additional information contact:
    www.novelconceptpublishing.com
    7974 Brookwood ST NE
    Warren, MI 44484
     
     
    Cover art © 2012 Willsin Rowe
    Photography by Marcus Ranum
    Edited by Valerie McCarty
     
    Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
     
    Jason Halstead’s website: http://www.booksbyjason.com
     
     
     
     
    Be sure to check out these other Vitalis novels from Jason Halstead:
     
    Vitalis - New Beginnings (book 1)
    Vitalis - The Colony (book 2)
    Vitalis - Parasites (book 3)
    Vitalis – Squatter’s Rights (book 5)
     
     
     
     
    Screamer
     
    Chapter 1
     
    “ You’re locked in Gunny, rapid deployment in five…four…three…two….Go!”
    Gunnery Sergeant Elsadora Quinn tightened every muscle in her body as though it would make a difference. The explosive force of her deployment pod being released from the orbital ship was enough to knock a regular untrained human out. Elsa was anything but that.
    The deployment pod, or screamer as the Marines affectionately called it, slipped through the vacuum of space alongside the other nineteen dark silver pods. It wasn’t until they breached the upper atmosphere that the heat resistant nose began to glow. To those on the planet below looking up it would seem nothing more than a group of shooting stars. Perfectly normal save for the concentration of twenty of them in a single area.
    With the acceleration out of the ship’s deployment tubes completed, Elsa had recovered enough to begin to relax. Just in time, her pod started to vibrate around her as the planet’s atmosphere began to slow her descent. The low grade inertial arrester built into the pod kept the vibration to a dull buzz. It made the hair stand up on her arms but was nothing compared to what a low cost personal entertainment device could provide for entertainment during the lonely hours on a deep space cruise.
    Elsa studied the holographic display on outwardly mirrored viewport in her helmet. Her rate of descent was falling. A few more seconds and she’d reach terminal velocity, at which point the screamer’s fins would deploy and its thrusters would fire. From experience she knew that was when things started to get interesting.
    With the wings deployed a screamer had just enough of a signature to present a target. The odds of getting hit by any manmade weaponry were less than one in a hundred, but she’d seen it happen. It took a direct hit from a serious weapon to take one out — they were designed to deliver their payload all the way to a hard landing at speeds in excess of six hundred miles an hour, with the payload expected to survive the impact. What happened more often was aerial burst weaponry that would knock a screamer off course.
    Elsa felt the sudden jolt of the thrusters engaging, propelling her pod back upwards into speeds going well past a thousand miles an hour. Another readout on the display indicated thirteen minutes until impact. It was always like that, somewhere between ten and twenty minutes, depending on the size of the planet and how thick the atmosphere was. The longest ten to twenty minutes of her life.