Starship Troopers

Jelly interrupted. But Sarge! he snapped. The Surgeon ain t making no drop and neither are you, with a degree and a half of fever. You think I got time to chat with you, just before a drop? Fall out!

Jenkins left us, looking sad and mad and I felt bad, too. Because of the Lieutenant buying it, last drop, and people moving up, I was assistant section leader, second section, this drop, and now I was going to have a hole in my section and no way to fill it. That s not good; it means a man can run into something sticky, call for help and have nobody to help him.

Jelly didn t downcheck anybody else. Presently he stepped out in front of us, looked us over and shook his head sadly. What a gang of apes! he growled. Maybe if you d all buy it this drop, they could start over and build the kind of outfit the Lieutenant expected you to be. But probably not with the sort of recruits we get these days. He suddenly straightened up, shouted, I just want to remind you apes that each and every one of you has cost the gov ment, counting weapons, armor, ammo, instrumentation, and training, everything, including the way you overeat has cost, on the hoof, better n half a million. Add in the thirty cents you are actually worth and that runs to quite a sum. He glared at us. So bring it back! We can spare you, but we can t spare that fancy suit you re wearing. I don t want any heroes in this outfit; the Lieutenant wouldn t like it. You got a job to do, you go down, you do it, you keep your ears open for recall, you show up for retrieval on the bounce and by the numbers. Get me?

He glared again. You re supposed to know the plan. But some of you ain t got any minds to hypnotize so I ll sketch it out. You ll be dropped in two skirmish lines, calculated two-thousand-yard intervals. Get your bearing on