Space Above and Beyond - #4 The Enemy - Dina Anastasio

by Dina Anastasio

  To Michael Manning

  ***

  Space: Above and Beyond™ © 1996 by Twentieth Century Fox Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address HarperCollins Children's Books, a division of HarperCollins Publishers, 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022

  The Hearing

  "Vanessa Camilla Damphousse!"

  Lieutenant Damphousse examined her bandaged hand and winced. She could feel the sweat beginning to gather on her forehead, but she could not manage to wipe it away. Something was wrong. Her body was not working. She could not answer.

  She was terrified.

  "Number 943-200-2419?"

  She glanced up. Commodore Ross was watching her.

  "Yes, sir?" she said softly.

  "Lieutenant Damphousse." Ross's voice was official and unyielding. "This is a preliminary inquiry. You have not been formally charged. We are going to ask you questions to determine if this matter should be pursued."

  "Yes, sir." The terror was subsiding a little now, but she was still afraid. Odd, but it wasn't these men who frightened her, or this hearing. It was the other terror. The one that wouldn't go away.

  "You are suspected of the following offenses," Commodore Ross went on. "One... Article Ninety-two of the Uniform Code of Military Justice: 'Failure to obey an order or regulation.' Two... Article Ninety-nine: 'Misbehavior before the enemy.'"

  Damphousse sighed and looked away.

  Colonel McQueen was speaking now. "At this time, Lieutenant, you should know that you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a military court of law. You have the right to an attorney, which can be appointed for you, if that is your wish. Do you understand these rights?"

  "Yes, sir," Damphousse said. "But I wish to waive these rights and make a statement."

  In the front of the room, the panel waited.

  "In regard to Article Ninety-nine, 'Misconduct before the enemy...'"

  Damphousse hesitated. The panel seemed to be shifting, fading, drifting away. It was hot in the room. Outside, there was space. Silent, endless, freezing space. But here, in this interrogation room in the spaceship Saratoga, the temperature was rising. Maybe that was why the men seemed to be shifting away.

  She glanced down at her hand and shivered. A small spot of blood was seeping through the bandage. She studied it for a moment, trying to remember. Where had she gotten that cut? Was it recent?

  She adjusted the bandage and glanced up at the panel. It didn't really matter when she had cut herself. It was just the blood that mattered.

  She hadn't understood that before.

  The room grew dim, the panel faded into a misty distance, and the terror returned.

  The terror. And the memory.

  "Do you recall what happened out there, Vanessa?" It was Captain Saey's voice. It sounded soft, and gentle, and very far away.

  Of course she remembered. She would never forget. How could she?

  None of them would ever forget. Not Nathan, or Shane, or Cooper, or Wang. And certainly not Damphousse.

  Chapter One

  The blood: that's what had started it all. The supply room of the Internal Solar System Cargo Vehicle was filled with crates of it. Medical supplies, rounds of ammunition, and blood.

  It seemed so simple at first.

  "Take the ISSCV in," McQueen had said. "Those Marines have been at war with the Chigs for too long. They need supplies. All you have to do is deliver them and get out."

  Chigs, Damphousse thought. Alien enemies from outer space. Our ancestors tried to colonize space. They tried to leave war and misery behind on Earth. And what did they find? Chigs. Alien enemies bent on destroying them.

  McQueen said this one would be an easy assignment. But would it? Was there such a thing as an easy assignment when there were Chigs around?

  "What's the drop zone?" Damphousse had asked.

  "Tantalus," Shane had answered nonchalantly, as if it wasn't really important.

  Tantalus. The angry red planet. Hadn't Shane heard the myths and fables that had been written about it? To Damphousse, Tantalus was beyond forbidding.

  She glanced behind her. The other members of the 58th seemed calm as they approached their target. All of them, except for Shane, stared out at the approaching planet. Shane, the leader of the mission, was working the radio.

  Damphousse pushed through to the porthole and looked out.

  An angry, volcanic red planet loomed up before her. A splash of orange in the black abyss of space.

  "Wild Card to Queen Six," Shane was saying. "Requesting coordinates for cargo drop."

  "Queen Six to Wild Card." The voice crackling through the static belonged to their colonel, McQueen. "Drop zone is four clicks from bull's-eye on vector zero niner zero."

  "They say this planet didn't have what it takes to become a star," Wang muttered to Damphousse.

  Damphousse peered through the fog at the smoky red planet. "I know. I've heard about it all my life. Someone called it 'A trip into hell.'"

  "Visibility is thirty meters on a good day," Wang told her. "Sulfur dioxide atmosphere. Ground temps average sixty-eight point five degrees Celsius... at night."

  Nathan West moved closer to the porthole and peered through the glass. "From what I hear, we should be evacuating troops from this place instead of dropping them supplies."

  "What do you hear?" asked Damphousse.

  "This battle's been going on since the start of the Chig war. Even though a lot of people think there's no reason for it. "

  "A guy told me there's a high rate of missing in actions," Wang added.

  Cooper Hawkes wiped the sweat from his forehead and groaned. "It's hot as an oven in here. Must be unbearable out there. Oh, by the way, I heard those MIAs were caused by friendly fire. It seems a few of our own have been killing their fellow Marines."

  "Thousands of casualties," Nathan was saying. "But neither side seems to gain any ground. For some weird reason, the brass can't let this little war go." Behind them, the radio was silent as Shane checked the coordinates.

  "All right," she said, when she was finished. "Lose the scuttlebutt. Gear up and get ready to unload. "

  One by one, they slid on their atmospheric helmets. When hers was in place, Damphousse grabbed Cooper's and turned toward him. But he didn't take it. He held out his hand, but then he lowered it again and shook his head.

  "No," he said.

  "What?" Damphousse wasn't sure she had heard him right.

  He stared at her for a moment, his eyes filled with fear. Then he took the helmet and put it on.

  They gathered their weapons and waited. Outside, the cargo ship was trailing a bright yellow afterburner as it cut through the steaming yellow clouds.

  A wave of anxiety passed over Damphousse as she gazed through the porthole. There was something about this place. Something strange. She didn't like it.

  Behind her, Wang let out a yelp. He was pointing at a crate of supplies marked "Packaged in Guantanamo, Cuba."

  "What's the matter with you?" she asked.

  He pointed again. On the floor by the crate were dozens of cockroaches, scuttling toward her.

  "They travel ten light-years in a vacuum, and they're still alive." Wang groaned, clearly terrified.

  "Roaches'll outlive us all." Nathan chuckled. "You gotta give them credit."

  "I'll give them the bottom of my steel reinforced boot!" Wang raised his foot slowly. Then he stomped it d
own, viciously, on top of one small, crusty body at a time.

  "I hate those things," he whispered. "I think I hate them more than anything I can think of."

  Damphousse saw that the angry red planet was looming.

  "We're about to touch down," she said to Shane. "Should we go to black?" It was the normal landing procedure—kill the lights inside the spacecraft to make themselves less conspicuous.

  Shane's face tensed at Damphousse's question. "No," she said, after a moment. "Go to red."

  The lights in the vehicles turned red as Shane moved back to the communications panel and the others prepared for landing.

  Damphousse dropped to the floor beside a crate of supplies and braced herself. She closed her eyes and felt the vibrations as the ship trembled toward the angry red planet. But she didn't feel the packets of scarlet fluid drop into her lap. Not then. Not until she was covered with them.

  When she realized what they were, she shivered. Then she froze, as she had seen Wang freeze. As the ship touched down on the iron sulfide surface, she felt the craft rock on impact. Only then did she turn her attention to the packets of blood.

  They were intact. Thank goodness they hadn't ripped! Damphousse shuddered. She was afraid of blood. No. It was more than that. The deep, thick fluid terrified her. This blood was contained. Relief washed over her.

  She was removing the packets when she heard the pounding. She glanced around. A lieutenant was screaming at her from outside the spacecraft, his fists pounding, pounding on the glass.

  "Help me!" he was shouting. "Let me in!"

  She swung around. Over there, a Marine was banging on another window. And over there, another. And another. Two of them weren't even wearing their atmospheric helmets. They were frightened, gasping for breath as they pleaded to be let in.

  "Let 'em in!" shouted Cooper. He moved to the door and popped the hatch. But before he could open it, machine gun fire erupted outside.

  They hit the floor and waited until it subsided. When it was quiet, they rose and watched as Cooper opened the door and looked out.

  They saw the two dead men first. They were lying on the ground beside the open door. They saw the Marines a few seconds later. There were three of them, and they were scrambling over the dead men, frantically trying to reach the spaceship.

  They didn't make it. Bullets took them down as they tried to climb inside.

  "Shut the hatch!" Shane shouted. "Tell the pilot to pull out now!"

  Nathan raced toward the flight deck as Wang manned the gun on the side of the ship.

  "I can't see anything!" Wang called.

  "Shut the hatch!" Shane shouted.

  Bullets soared around them, sending them to the floor.

  The Marines covered their heads and lay there until the firing finally stopped. Cooper was slamming the hatch shut as Nathan made his way back from the flight deck.

  "Our flight crew's dead," he reported. "And the two left engines are dust. We're stuck here unless we get some help."

  Cooper and Damphousse moved to a porthole.

  "There!" cried Cooper, pointing outside. "That's the sniper!"

  "How many Chigs?" Damphousse asked. She was thinking about Aliens. Enemies from other planets.

  "I see only one!" Cooper reported.

  "And it isn't a Chig," Shane whispered.

  Nathan gasped. He said what they all knew. "He's one of ours. He's a Marine."

  The 58th huddled beside the door for a long time. Outside, the silhouette remained, standing straight and tall. The Marine's M-590 rifle was pointed at the spacecraft. Then he began shooting bullet after bullet, straight at his own.

  Chapter Two

  "Take cover!" Shane cried, ducking behind a crate of weapons.

  The others followed, scurrying behind the supplies.

  "I can't get a bead on him!" Wang announced. "Visibility is, like, zero and..."

  "Why are we just sitting here?" Cooper shouted. "Why aren't we stopping him?"

  They were all thinking the same thing, but it was Nathan who said it. "Because he's one of ours. Just because he's shooting at us doesn't mean we should be shooting at him."

  "Maybe he thinks we're an enemy," said Shane. "Wang said visibility's at zero."

  Maybe Shane was right, thought Damphousse. This strange world was engulfed in a thick orange fog that made it impossible to see anything.

  "You're forgetting something," Cooper reminded them. "He gunned down those Marines. They were right out there with him. They came from his position."

  "The guy's probably Section Eight," said Nathan.

  Damphousse played that in her mind for a second. Section Eight. Psycho. Crazy. Maybe.

  "Queen Six to Ace!" McQueen's voice crackled through the radio. Damphousse was the radio operator on this mission. She rushed toward it and listened.

  "We've established geosynchronous orbit over your position," McQueen said. "Unable to descend due to high wind velocities."

  The others had moved closer to Damphousse. They had heard, and understood, McQueen's words. Nobody was coming. They were alone in this. "Radio contact difficult," McQueen added. "Continue emitting homing beacon every five minutes."

  "Ace to Queen Six," Damphousse sighed. "In contact with friendly fire. Repeat. Friendly fire. Please advise."

  But there was no advise. The radio crackled nothing but static.

  "I doubt he received my transmission," she told the others. But they didn't hear her either. Gunfire from outside obscured her words.

  When it finally stopped, the members of the 58th leaned against the crates and looked at each other. They didn't know what to do.

  Cooper spoke first. "If that grunt's so far gone to fire on us, I say we put him out of his misery!"

  "Negative!" Shane whispered. "Negative! Negative! We can't kill another Marine."

  "We have him outnumbered," Nathan said. "We can proceed in a wedge formation. Then, when he's surrounded, we can take him."

  Nathan glanced over at Shane for confirmation. She was watching Cooper carefully, as if she were afraid of what he might do or say next.

  Cooper was unpredictable. He looked human. He acted human. But he was a Tank. Sometimes, like the other In-Vitros who were raised in tubes, he was a little more than human. A little angrier. A little less reasonable.

  "Right," Shane muttered, her eyes still glued to Cooper. "Contain him and bring him back. Roger that, Cooper?"

  Cooper shrugged and nodded. Then he cocked the bolt on his rifle and turned away.

  Damphousse rose and found her helmet. When she had snapped it on, she followed the others through the airlock door of the ISSCV.

  A violent wind shook her as her boot touched the volcanic rock surface. Somewhere in the distance, a volcano erupted. Haunting human screams, followed by gunfire, echoed through the darkness. Were they the wounded? The crazed? Why were they crying like that?

  Tense with anxiety, Damphousse waited for Shane to give them their orders. If they stayed close together they would be all right.

  Wouldn't they?

  Shane hesitated. She stared down at the fog that was swirling around her feet.

  "I think we're in a minefield," she said. "Be careful."

  She gestured for the others to follow.

  Slowly, the five Marines pushed through the denseness. From the shadows came the sound of Marine gunfire.

  The minefield stretched from the ship to a canyon reeking of sulfur. When they reached the canyon, they stopped and listened. The moans, louder now, echoed off the tall, stark rocks and through the eerie shadows.

  Shane stopped suddenly.

  Damphousse felt her tension. "What is it?" she whispered.

  Shane pointed. The face of a dead Marine loomed there in front of them. His eyes were wide, terrified, frozen with fright.

  The 58th continued on, lost in their thoughts. They moved through dense fog without speaking, until they reached a rocky slope. A terrible battle had taken place there. Dead Marines lay everyw
here, like toys flung down in anger.

  A battle fought. A battle lost.

  "The Chigs had a good day," Damphousse said, moving even closer to Shane.

  Chapter Three

  Shane led them through the eerie battlefield, stopping every so often for them to catch up.

  To Damphousse, Shane's behavior was reassuring. They were a team. They looked out for each other. They were together, and everything was going to be all right.

  But—somewhere, not far off, a voice was calling to them. Chanting something Vanessa knew well. She had learned it in boot camp a long time ago.

  "Born in the woods..."

  The voice boomed and echoed over their heads. They hesitated, listening. Then they readied their M-590s and aimed at the deep, impenetrable haze.

  "Trained by a bear..." the voice called.

  "Double set of dog teeth. Triple coat of hair!"

  Damphousse spun around, her weapon poised. But where to shoot?

  He's crazy! she thought. He's insane, and we can't see him!

  When the others dove for cover, she dove too. She found a rock big enough to hide her and rolled behind it.

  When she was hidden, she peered out. But she saw nothing.

  Where was he?

  "There!" Nathan said.

  Damphousse glanced over at West. He was pointing at a nearby hill.

  "Move out!" he called.

  He scrambled to his feet and raced up the hill.

  The others followed. Damphousse and Shane flanked him; Cooper and Wang fell into position at the rear. They had formed a diamond. They were a perfect team.

  The Marine did not see them. He stood straight and tall, still chanting.

  "M... mean and mad.

  "A... all the time.

  "R... rough and tough.

  "I... in the mud.

  "N... never quit.

  "E... every day."

  They were close to him now. They had circled around him, and still he chanted, unaware. Nathan stayed in the lead. The others watched him, waiting for his instructions. He held up four fingers and began to count them down. Four seconds.

  "Marine Corps!" the Marine shouted.