A Choice of Treasons Read Online Free Page A

and Stacy all turned into statues of very silent stone as York said, “See to the details, Sergeant.”
    York’s com came to life with Olin Rame’s voice. “Stand by for transition.” There was a pause, then Rame barked out a short count-down sequence. York felt Invaradin up-transit, then almost immediately down-transit. Another pause, then, “Stable orbit in two minutes.”
    York suppressed the panic crawling up into his gut and grumbled, “Load ‘em up, Sergeant.”
    Palevi shouted more orders. The marines split into two squads, Palevi in charge of one, and a female corporal named Tathit in charge of the other. Tathit double-timed her squad through an air lock to Two Bay . Palevi and his marines scrambled into One’s open hatch. York, the last to enter, took the commanding officer’s position immediately aft of the hatch, a small recess that allowed him to be the first out in the drop zone . Like the rest of the marines he sat down and strapped himself in place and waited.
    “Cap’em,” his helmet speaker said. “This is Pilot Corporal Hackla. Bridge reports weather over the embassy looks good. High G drop, right sir?”
    York answered, “Crash priority. And give me a full exterior scan.”
    “Yes, sir. One moment, sir.”
    Hackla sent him a signal that blackened the inside of his visor, then showed the view forward of the gunboat: the open hatch of One’s now evacuated service bay, with just the edge of a blue-green globe showing in one corner.
    “Stable orbit and ejection in twenty seconds . . . nineteen . . . eighteen . . .”
    York stopped listening and spoke into his helmet without keying his com. “Computer. Higee dosage, maximum. Execute.”
    He felt a pinch in his neck as one of his suit injectors fired: a mix of G drugs, phets , aggression hypes , and a few other things the marines wanted in their mood of the moment.
    They cut gravity in One Bay and York’s stomach rose up into his throat. A moment later Hackla activated One’s internal fields and his stomach dropped back into his bowels. A loud clang echoed through One’s hull as Invaradin’s docking boom pushed the boat gently out through the hatch.
    “You all right, Cap’em?” Palevi asked.
    York ignored him.
    “Cheer up, Cap’em. Could be worse. You could be sittin’ here with a bunch of tank-crazies from the Vincent .”
    York cleared his visor, couldn’t see Palevi’s face hidden behind his own visor, but sensed somehow that his lips were turned up in that self-serving grin of his. York wondered if Palevi actually knew something, or if his remark about the Vincent had been just a simple jibe. “Don’t worry, sir, you’ll make a good marine yet.”
    “Not if I can help it,” York growled, then opaqued his visor, returning to the view forward of the boat. The bloated globe of a large planet now filled it almost completely.
    Hackla’s count reached “zero.” With the internal fields of the boat compensating there was no sensation of acceleration, but a small readout superimposed in one corner of York’s visor flickered and displayed a steadily rising number. After a moment it stabilized at thirty, and Hackla’s voice said, “Shall I hold it at thirty G’s, sir? Can’t compensate beyond that.”
    “Take it to the limit,” York growled, “Captain’s orders.”
    A large, heavy hand pressed on York’s chest, and the number on his display rose immediately to thirty-three. “Three G’s internal, sir.”
    The number rose further. “Five . . . Eight . . . Ten . . . Holding at ten.”
    York instructed his suit to give him another dose of higee , concentrated on breathing slow, steady, deep breaths. “Maneuvering,” Hackla said. “Going to fifteen gravities internal.”
    York cursed.
    “Eighteen G’s. Twenty . . .”
    York didn’t actually black out. By that time he was so loaded on phets he couldn’t lose consciousness, but he did drift off to a place where nothing seemed to matter, where he