Major Gavin Baskerville’s ears were filled with the low hum of powerpacks. Three of the troopers with him were already charging their weapons, following his example. He saw them repeat the process, checking the functionality of the weapon again. False positives happened, and nobody wanted to find that you won that one-in-a-million lottery ticket in the middle of combat. That was the danger of non-lethal weapons, when they failed you’re defenseless. It’s why he ordered his men to carry their rifles too, despite being told that this was a snatch-and-grab mission.

When another two powerpacks came online, the hum began to reverberate within the small cabin. Gavin’s teeth rattled as he fought the urge to shake the feeling in his head loose. This was one of the more frustrating aspects of the non-lethals, the pitch that the electrical packs which caused your skin to crawl and your teeth to tingle. He hated it, wished they could go back tasers. Despite how much the troops hated them, Congress didn’t listen.

Looking around at his men, he saw no visible excitement among them. Each was focused on their assigned task. Those who had finished their assigned duties sat in abject silence, waiting for what was to come. Every mission was like this, fear and nerves of the unknown grating on the soldiers. Mentally preparing themselves to do their sacred duty. Even after over a decade of service, Gavin felt those same nerves, that fear of failing his men and his country.

He had an experienced team, they’d worked together for more than two years with the exception of the new sniper, Corporal Glenn Mallory. The lanky country boy had only joined them two weeks prior, having only completed three training sessions with them. Normally Gavin would prefer a few more live fire training evolutions before bringing a new guy on a real combat operation, but there wasn’t time. Instead, he had to place his faith in the Almighty and focus on the mission ahead. They’d passed the point of no return, it was too late for all of the “should’ve” and “could’ve.”

He was good. Really good. But Gavin had seen enough “good” men and women who couldn’t cut it in the Army’s 173^rd Special Operations Unit. Individualism was not prized among the SOU, it led to dead GIs and folded flags mailed home to Earth. They were informally known as the Gibborim, though nobody could agree where the name came from. The SOU was trained as a team; to perform as a team, to think as a team, and if necessary, to die as a team. There would be no surrender. No Gibborim warrior wanted to spend years of captivity and torture, when death was so easily obtained in battle.

The soldiers in Gavin’s unit had a professionally competent air about them. It was a unit comprised entirely of volunteers, unlike the rest of the Army. The draftees filled the ranks and were universally distrusted by war planners. General officers viewed them as cowardly miscreant’s incapable of anything more useful than becoming grist for the mill while the real warriors wore the wings of the U.S. Imperial Space Force.

The communications specialist, Corporal Willis “Sweets” Sweeney was among the most proficient member of the team. He understood that once an enemy identified him as the comm-o, he had seconds to live. Awakenings like that forced soldiers to grow up fast and encouraged them to push themselves harder. As the comm-o, Sweets had the ability to contact whichever mothership had brought the unit into the battle. He could direct orbital bombardments and request an untold amount of direct support, making him the biggest threat on the battlefield.

Glancing over at his commo specialist, Gavin tried judging Sweeny’s body language. He rarely smiled, hid his emotions well and had one hell of a poker face. There was a vibrant intensity to the ebony skin near his eyes that made Gavin wonder how worried the man was. The mission was going to be dangerous, but Gibborim rarely participated in missions that weren’t. Snatch and grabs deep behind enemy lines were never easy, but when America needed warriors to take down element’s hostile to its existence they called his boys and girls.

“Sweets, you good?” Gavin asked.

The man looked up directly at his commander and cracked a smile. Tilting his head down slightly, Sweets showed something between his teeth. Looking closer, he saw that it was a small, red dot. The translucent, piece of candy was called a “lava drop” by the troops. The face Gavin made caused Sweets laugh. Lava drops were one of the spiciest candies ever invented and the commo specialist loved them. That explains the face he was making, Gavin realized.

Most of the team had been practicing for this mission for over a month. If the intelligence was correct, there was no need to hurry so the decision was made to get it right the first time. The spooks over in the CIA believed that the leader of the Albion Spring, a small but deadly terrorist unit, was at the base they were approaching. If he could be captured – or better yet, killed – the head would be cut off of a terrifyingly dangerous snake. Secretly, Gavin hoped the leader, known as “Fawkes,” resisted.

Reaching into through the open faceplate into his helmet, Gavin fished around for a silver chain. Clasping the small medallion hanging from it, he closed his eyes and said a silent prayer. Despite his closed eyes, he was aware of what was going on around him. Corporal Glenn “Driller” Mallory continued to pretend he was inspecting his M-501 sniper rifle, while surreptitiously watching his new commander. He’d been trained to notice every minute detail, to ignore patterns and look for what was new. Small movements, misapplied camouflage or the stereotypical snapping twig could mean the difference between a successful mission or death.

Unlike snipers, Gavin and other SOU commanders were trained to look for details while pairing them within the bigger picture. Focusing too tightly on any one small detail could create tunnel-vision, leading to mission failure and the deaths of everyone involved. When Driller stopped picking at his rifle and didn’t start wiping it down again, Gavin noticed.

Turning to the man on his left, Driller whispered, “What’s the commander doing?”

Specialist Gordon “Pyro” Winslow looked up from his rifle, leaning forward to see where Driller was pointing. After a moment, he turned back to the sniper with a questioning expression. “What does it look like he’s doing?”

“I don’t know,” Driller said, annoyance tinging his accented voice, “that’s why I’m asking.”

Pyro opened his mouth to respond, only to be interrupted. The other door breacher on the team, Specialist Duke “Nemo” Nguyen, snorted. His intentions needed no further interpretation, he was calling bullshit. Nemo wasn’t the biggest or most intimidating man on the team, but he had a reputation for being willing to fight anyone. That damn Napoleon Complex will get him killed one day, Gavin thought to himself.

Eyeballing the other two for a moment to ensure their silence, Nemo leaned in and whispered his rebuke. “You will show respect.”

It wasn’t a question, Nemo’s forceful tone telling Gavin that the specialist was itching for a fight. He knew that every man handled pre-combat jitters differently but found it odd that Nemo chose to literally fight away his nerves. The two men returned to their tasks without another sound, though he suspected that they’d seek out some good-natured revenge after the mission.

Opening his hand and kissing the medallion, Gavin answered the unspoken question behind the earlier drama to his team. “It’s a trinket from my mother,” he explained. “It’s supposed to represent Saint George. My mother believed in saints, and George was the patron to protect law enforcement and warriors, such as ourselves.

“I don’t know if any of that stuff is real, but what’ve we got to lose in trying? I’ve asked Saint George to protect us during our mission, like I do for every other mission. If my mother was right, we’ll make it out of this one alive. If not, we’ll never know the difference.”

All eyes were on him as he stuffed the medallion back into his combat armor. There were no questions. No comments. Just the sound of the powerpacks completing their discharge into the electric stunner rifles, and then silence.

“Gibborim,” a voice said, coming from the internal speakers on their helmets, “this is the USS Constitution’s mission control. How do you copy?”

“Loud and clear,” Sweets replied after receiving a nod from the other team members.

“Roger that,” the disembodied voice replied. “Mission is on schedule, prepare for immediate deployment. We’ve shifted your launch slightly. The USNS Tinman cargo vessel had engine problems, leaving late. Despite pushing hard they’re not gonna make it. We’ve had to change our launch window. The margins have… become a little slim, but we’ll send you in ourselves with the skipper’s skiff.”

Waiting for his commander to respond, Sweets looked over. When Gavin nodded, he spoke into the comms with his usual clipped proficiency. “Roger that, mission control. Change of plans acknowledged. Thanks for the warning, Gibborim out.”

A chorus of groans as the soldiers locked their weapons into mounts built-in to the gravity seats. They sat near each man’s left leg, often leading to bruising as the soldier was slammed into the holder during the turbulence of orbital insertion. Gavin had even seen broken bones from the poorly placed weapons mount. Seconds after the last soldier had his weapon stored, the lights went out.

Alone with their thoughts, each solder on Gavin’s twelve-man team leaned back in their seats to contemplate their uncertain future. Mechanical clamps attached to hardpoints on each man’s armor, holding everything except his fingers and toes in place. With nothing else to do but endure the ride, soldiers tried to think of happier times and ignore the nagging fear and push aside any reminders of their own mortality. The more seasoned soldiers reviewed the mission briefings, but the one unifying truth was that they all tried not to think of the worst possible scenarios.

As soon as the clamps engaged, each man said their secure code-word command to power-down their armor. The objective was to become a hole in space. To become as invisible as possible, though Gavin knew that that was technically impossible. If the enemy were looking hard enough, in the right place and at the right time, his stealth shuttle would be visible to sensors. The goal was to make it past the outer satellites without being detected, avoiding enemy guns.

“This is gonna hurt,” Nemo moaned.

“Yeah, probably,” Sweets agreed.

“I hope nobody had omelets this morning,” said Specialist Travis “Squint” Kade.

“I had them,” Driller said, his voice a half-octave higher than usual. “Why? Was there--”

The specialist’s words were interrupted by a sudden, violent force hitting the left side of his body. Even with his combat armor, Driller squeaked in surprise, much to the amusement of his buddies. Several soldiers grunted or shouted a less-than-enthusiastic “yee haw,” though Gavin knew that those antics were just for show. Everyone felt the pain of stealthed launches, the sudden application of gee forces onto an inert human body couldn’t be ignored.

When it hit Gavin, his vision blacked out. He felt like he was swimming through the darkness for several seconds, pinpricks of light dotting the far horizon. As he got closer to the stars, the blood from the right side of his brain found its way back to the left. Things slowly resumed their normal equilibrium, and through it all he fought the urge to vomit into his helmet. He succeeded, though only by slim margins gained from years of training with the Gibborim.

There were no sensors in the passenger compartment of their stealth shuttle, just seats and weapon racks. Sensors took a lot of power to run, power that was detectable. Those power signatures lit up enemy sensors like the 4^th of July, ruining the chance of reaching their target undetected. Despite wishing for the information that the high-tech sensors could provide, Gavin knew that they had to come in stealthed; cold, silent, and invisible. He didn’t need the sensors, but he wanted them more than his alcoholic dad craved whiskey. As a member of the Gibborim, he operated in the dark underbelly of the American Empire, and the precious details from those sensors were a life-line to a world bathed in sunlight.

Knowing that they’d be assaulting in the dark, unable to get tactical or technical details once they launched their shuttle, Gavin and his team practiced their assault until his team knew where they were every second from the increased force from their launch. The sensations of movement told his team their speed and sometimes even the angle of their descent relative to the target. He worked hard to breath normally, thinking of his medallion, his mother, and the mission ahead.

Their trajectory would put the skiff between their ballistic vessel and their target, the large moon known as New Europa. From there, the skiff would launch the stealth shuttle for the final rendezvous with their target. With a precision only capable because of the cooperation of the skiff’s captain and the math of the planners, Gavin’s vessel would sail out the other vessel’s cargo hold. From the sensors, they’d look like a routine waste disposal as they shot out the other side. Disguising yourself as shit aint for the faint of heart, he smirked.

Unless someone was peering out of the starboard porthole and was paying attention, it was unlikely anyone would notice the angular black lozenge passing through. If they were wrong, if their timing was off by the slightest margins, the Gibborim was a total team kill. Holding his breath, Gavin waited for the fiery doom that would signal his doom. Two seconds after they should’ve been released by the skiff pilot, he sighed in relief.

Thrilled to be alive, he lifted his eyes to peer into the face across from him. With the soldier’s armor on standby power and the lights out, Gavin couldn’t see the soldier’s expression. This made it difficult for him to read his soldiers body language, but he was glad the soldier couldn’t see his expression either. Gavin was scared. Every mission filled him with foreboding, but something about this one seemed more desperate than their standard operational tempo. While he struggled not to imagine worst case scenarios, he noted a dim glow above his eyebrows.

Looking all the way up, he could see the built-in countdown timer. It drew operated on the armor’s back-up battery that could be re-charged from any ambient light source. The small timer, twenty-two green dots of light, indicated how much time was left until the assault craft made contact with the fourteen-mile-thick ice on New Europa’s surface. When they hit boots on ground, Gavin would manually reset the timer for their extraction. Stop it, he urged himself. It’s not IF we return for extraction, but WHEN. He could’ve muttered into his armor, when it was powered down the comms were off until he proactively keyed the mic. Still, verbalizing the fears gave them weight, he couldn’t let them have that kind of power over him.

That was a preview of God Save the Queen. To read the rest purchase the book.

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