by Ian Douglas
“Three…two…one…release!”
They let go of one another at the same instant. The repulsion of their suit shields, augmented by the centrifugal force of their spin, blasted them apart.
On that slick surface, they rocketed back from one another in opposite directions, both losing their balance and falling onto the ice, but slowly enough to do no damage. Lucky landed on his backside and began spinning as he slid rapidly across the ice. Two of the watching Marines stepped aside to let him sail past. Then he hit a patch of rougher ice, felt a cobblestone kind of vibration through the seat of his suit, and quickly came to a stop.
Jesus Garcia had stepped up to the point where Lucky and BJ had parted company and faced first him, then BJ, using his suit’s laser rangefinder to measure the distance traveled. “All right!” he exclaimed. “Sixteen point one one meters for Beej…and Lucky gets a big sixteen point two one meters…and another new record!”
“Way to go, Lucky!” Coughlin said, shouting above the cheers. He helped Lucky to his feet, then clapped him on the helmet. “Not bad for doin’ it with a real girl, huh?”
“Screw you, Cog!” but he laughed as he said it. The fact that he preferred simulated sex to the real thing was the subject of endless jabs and jibes within the platoon, but he was good-natured about it. And it wasn’t that he didn’t like the real thing.
“Aw, lay off him, Cog,” BJ said. “The poor boy’s just confused. He’ll get his priorities straight one of these days.”
“Yeah,” Lucky said. “You wanna help straighten me out, BJ?”
“In your dreams!”
“Ha! Which is exactly what I do with virtual sex! In my dreams, and anytime I want it, any way I want it!”
“What the hell do you people think you’re doing?” The voice was Sergeant Major Kaminski’s. He strode into the circle, then planted himself there, a glowering giant, fists on hips. “Leave you jerk-offs alone for five minutes, and what happens?”
“C’mon, Ski, they weren’t doing any—” Gunnery Sergeant Pope began.
“You people were goddamn screwing off in an environment where one wrong step will get you dead!” Kaminski shouted. “My God! The Skipper links in through Campanelli’s helmet camera, and what does he get? A point-blank bellyful of Leckie’s face! It’s enough to turn your stomach!”
“It was my responsibility,” Pope said.
“Yeah, you’re right there, mister. You’re on report. You’re all on report. All of you, gather up your shit and fall in. We’re marching back to the barracks.”
A chorus of groans sounded over the comm channel. Marching on Europa was slow, tedious, and prone to embarrassing falls. The order amounted to administrative discipline.
As Lucky was picking up some of the welding gear, he found himself near Campanelli. He chinned in a private channel request.
“Hey,” he said when she acknowledged. “Thanks for the dance.”
“Anytime, Lucky.”
“I could use one of those drinks now.”
She laughed. “I’m not sure Warhorse is gonna cut us any slack. But as soon as we’re back on Earth…”
Back on Earth. Lucky turned and looked up at the grossly swollen surprise of Jupiter, low in the east. A tiny red sphere was transiting the gas giant’s face, chasing its own round, black shadow—Io.
Kaminski’s sudden appearance had been like a dash of ice water in the face, a sharp reawakening to reality. For a while there, the skylarking had pushed the sheer alienness of this place back, held it at bay. It was amazing, he thought, what humans could learn to accept as normal, given even a little time and adaptability. Even with space suits, even with Jupiter in the sky, the ten of them had forgotten for a moment where they were.
Maybe that was an indication of just how much they didn’t want to be there. Now it all came back. Damn…why did Tone have to buy it?
“My God,” Lucky said. “I hate this place.”
He’d forgotten the private channel was still open. “Welcome to Bumfuq,” BJ told him.
FIFTEEN
20 OCTOBER 2067
CO’s Office, E-DARES Facility
Ice Station Zebra, Europa
0910 hours Zulu
Jeff shook his head sadly. “What the hell were you thinking, Gunny? If someone had torn their suit falling on the ice…”
Tom Pope stood at attention, “centered on the hatch” in front of Jeff’s desk. “No excuse, sir.”
“Don’t give me that Parris Island shit, Gunny! You’ve been in the Corps—what?—thirteen years?”
“Fourteen, sir.”
“Long enough to know better. Why didn’t you stop it?”
Pope’s eyebrow arced toward the dark fuzz of his hairline. “Begging the Major’s pardon, sir…but I saw no reason to. They’d been working hard, they had some down time. I saw no reason they couldn’t have a little fun.”
“‘A little fun.’ A little fun?” He checked an entry on his PAD display. “Corporal Cartwright had a small hole blown in her suit in the first battle Monday. Her suit had a temporary patch installed on the field. Suppose that make-do had blown while she was screwing around on the ice?”
“Her suit had been checked out by the armorer, sir. I double-checked it myself. If there was a problem with the repair, then she shouldn’t have been out there in that suit at all.”
“Agreed. That’s not the issue.”
“Then, begging the major’s pardon again, I’m not sure I understand what is.”
“The issue is responsible behavior. From the men and women of this company. From the man who was entrusted with their safety. Damn it, in the past three days, we’ve gone through four attacks. We’ve lost thirty-four people altogether—thirty-four people! Almost half of our strength! We damned sure can’t afford to lose any more, and we sure as hell can’t lose any to dumb-ass accidents caused by skylarking!”
“Nothing happened, sir.”
“No. Thank God. But, damn it, why were they even on the surface unless it was absolutely necessary? The idea is to keep surface exposure to a minimum. It’s not just that I don’t want them cracking a visor or tearing a suit and dying up there. I’d like to know they have a chance of retiring from the Corps, living to a ripe old age, and not dying of cancer! Or radiation sickness, six months from now.”
“Yes, sir.”
Jeff glared at him for a moment. Tom Pope was a good man. Silver Star, Bronze Star with cluster, three Purple Hearts. He’d fought in Cuba, Mexico, and Russia, and been part of the Marine Recon/SEAL team that had taken down those Brazilian terrorists on the cruise ship in Puerto Rico five years back and disarmed that do-it-yourself nuke they were smuggling into Miami. After that, he’d been at Parris Island, first as an assistant drill instructor, then as a DI, until he’d been accepted for Space Training at Quantico. There was no questioning his bravery…or his intelligence.
He decided to try a different approach.
“Okay, Tom,” he said. “I can’t believe you didn’t have a reason for standing by and letting that happen. You’re too good a gunnery sergeant, too good a Marine to let that sort of skylarking go on without a reason. You care to enlighten me?”
“Sir, I—”
“I don’t know the men and women in Second Platoon as well as you do. If I’m missing something, I want to know what it is.”
“It’s not something wrong, exactly…”
Jeff said nothing but waited for him to continue.
“Look, sir, all I’ve got to go on here is a hunch, a feeling. This place has the company spooked. It has us all spooked. Working and fighting up there, with Jupiter hanging overhead like a big, staring eye—”
“Tom, you’re not pulling some sort of canned peaches shit on me here, are you?”
Canned peaches was an old, old tradition in the Corps, a quirk going back at least as far as World War II and the first amtracs used to storm enemy-held beaches. Corps superstition held that it was bad luck to eat canned peaches aboard any Marine vehi
cle, especially armor or amphibious vehicles. Marines who’d found peaches in their rations had always assiduously traded them to members of the other services—Navy or Army—in order to avoid mechanical breakdown.
Superstition. But the business of war—and the ongoing uncertainty of survival—tended to feed superstition like gasoline feeding a fire.
“No, sir,” Tom replied. “It’s not like that at all. It’s…I guess it’s just that this place is so, so alien.”
“My point exactly.”
“But, well, sir…I’ve been on Mars. I was stationed there for six months after Space School. You have to wear a suit, but most places, anyway, you can squint your eyes and just about imagine you’re standing in a desert back in New Mexico. Sometimes the sky’s even blue. And on the Moon, well, that’s about as different as a place can be, but on the Near Side, anyway, Earth is right there. All you have to do is look up. If there’s trouble, Earth and blue skies are three or four days away—a few hours if it’s an emergency and you can grab an A-M shuttle.
“But the view here…my God. It’s as strange as the Moon, but more so, with ice instead of gray dust and Jupiter so big and, and—top-heavy in the sky, you swear it’s gonna fall right off its hook and land in your lap. A day that’s three and a half days long, and the only time it’s really dark is when the sun is in eclipse behind Jupiter. And then you can still see the dark side of the planet, kind of dim and ghostly like, with the aurora and lightning and stuff. The other moons, shuttling back and forth like beads on a string. And you know that Earth is an ungodly long way away—a week at a steady one G, three or more weeks with a coast phase in the middle.”
“All of which is exactly why I came down on you, on them so hard. This is not a human environment.”
“But you know how it is in the Corps, Major. Marines stick up for one another. They pull together, gung ho. They’ll endure the most godawful hardships and assignments you care to dump on ’em. Privation. Hardship. Crowding. Combat. All of that just makes ’em closer, y’know what I mean?
“I guess what I’m trying to say, sir, is that they need to relax with each other sometimes. Cut loose. Skylark. Losing this many people shook ’em pretty bad, especially right after that first battle, when we lost so many. Giving ’em some time to unwind, especially without gold braid breathing down their necks—it helps morale. Sir.”
“I see.”
“The company…they’re good people, sir. But they’re facing a strange kind of lonely desperation out here. Seven hundred million klicks from home, in an alien environment that will kill them in an instant if they get careless, yeah…and an enemy that’s whittling them down now a few at a time. I think they’re just trying to hang on to their sanity, sir, whatever is left of it, by importing a little bit of home. For Marines, that means some down time away from supervision, a chance to play.”
“We’re in one hell of a playground.”
“That we are, sir. But by making it a playground, they’re humanizing it, making it home. You see my point, sir?”
“I think maybe I do.”
“You know, we’ve been talking about intelligence a lot. Bull sessions after taps and on watch, that sort of thing. You know that Singer everyone’s talking about?”
“Yes.”
“Well, the word in the squad bay, sir, is that that thing can’t be intelligent. All it does is sit in the deep ocean…singing. It doesn’t play. And play may be the one thing that differentiates intelligent life from every other kind of critter in the universe.”
“A profound thought, Tom. But we still have the problem of maintaining good order and discipline. What do you recommend?”
“Sir?”
“I’ve got a problem here, Gunnery Sergeant. Ten men and women skylarking while on a work detail, risking their lives, no less, playing games on the ice. And a platoon leader who should have known better and put a stop to it. What do you recommend I do about it?”
Tom pressed his lips together for a moment. “Sir, the Marines involved aren’t to blame. I am. As you say, I should have stopped it. Frankly, I wouldn’t want to squelch any behavior that smacked of high spirits.”
“I agree. But I can’t let it slide with a warning.”
“No, sir. But you could put all the blame on me. That…might have one unfortunate side effect. The Marines involved might think you’re a damned son of a bitch. Sir. On the other hand, I can’t think of a better way to pull them together.”
Jeff sighed. “Sometimes I think half of leadership is making the men hate you enough to pull together and get the job done.”
“I also suggest that you keep them busy. Too much time to just sit and think makes men brood.”
“Agreed. Kaminski’s cannon ought to take care of that.”
“And digging all of those goddamn holes. Do you really think that’s going to help with the bombardments, sir?”
“It should. Earth HQ suggested it. Melting lots of holes in star and circle patterns should dampen surface shock waves by quite a bit.”
“Well, I imagine we’ll find out later today. Papa Romeo’s been pretty regular with his deliveries.”
Papa Romeo Charlie was the Marine pet name for the Star Mountain, which changed orbit to bombard the base just before each PRC attack..
“Unfortunately, you’re right,” Jeff replied. All of the attacks since Monday’s first big push had been relatively low scale and minor, designed to wear the Marine defenders down rather than overrun the base completely. There were two landers out there now, the first one, to the west, and a second that had touched down to the south. Others had come and gone in the past three days, but those two had remained behind as advance bases or OPs. Chinese troops lurked in the chaotic terrain south and east of the base, sniping with laser rifles and Type 80s when they had the chance. The Marines had learned to be very careful when moving anywhere along the crater rim.
“Very well,” Jeff said, deciding. “I’m pulling one of your rockers, Tom. You are hereby reduced in rank to staff sergeant.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“And I’m turning your platoon over to Staff Sergeant Campanelli, who I am promoting to acting gunnery sergeant.”
“A good choice, sir. She’s sharp. A good Marine.”
“I know. I want to recognize her role in spotting the incoming lander the other day, getting a warning back to us, and in killing that tank with her lobber. You think she’s up to bossing a platoon?”
“I think so, sir.”
“You’re her 2IC now, Tom. Help her out.”
“Aye, aye, sir.”
“Dismissed.”
He was gone.
Jeff stared at the bulkhead for a long moment. He wasn’t entirely happy with his decision, but it was the best he could find. Tom Pope was a good Marine. In his own mind, at least, Jeff thought of the demotion as strictly probationary; Pope would have that rocker back inside of six months.
The leadership of the platoon was another matter. He didn’t like changing horses in midcrossing. The makeup, the attitudes, the politics of any platoon were complex enough without the CO coming in and scrambling things. And keeping Tom as second-in-command might easily backfire. If this was Earth, Jeff would have arranged for Tom’s transfer to another unit, just so he wouldn’t be following in the unit he’d once led.
It was damned hard keeping rank and leadership positions balanced when there was no outside manpower pool to draw on. Ever since the first Marine unit had been deployed outside Earth’s atmosphere, there’d been a serious problem in units becoming top-heavy with rank. Because promotions from private to private first class and from PFC to lance corporal were largely automatic, given time in grade, no Marine left space training as less than an E3—lance corporal. As a result, units deployed to space duty tended toward a preponderance of NCOs—corporals, sergeants, staff sergeants, gunnery sergeants. It was as bad as the Army Special Forces, where you couldn’t even apply for training unless you were a noncom with four years beh
ind you.
Second Platoon had boosted with only one gunnery sergeant, however, which made it necessary to promote someone else to fill the platoon leader slot. Campanelli was the logical choice. She had enough time in grade for promotion and had already passed the necessary quals Earthside. A field promotion would need confirmation, but that would follow almost automatically with his recommendation.
The problem was how the platoon was going to take this. Hell, Campanelli was one of the ten Marines who’d been skylarking on the ice; in a way, he was rewarding her for that—not the message he wanted to send at all. He’d get around that by including another field promotion in the round. Lucky Leckie’s performance on the crater rim Monday also demanded special recognition.
The real question, then, was how Second Platoon would take the reshuffling. On the one hand, his decision might be seen as interference, as micro management of a well-tuned platoon, and bad for morale. But to ignore the incident would be bad for discipline.
Damned if you do, damned if you don’t. He decided he needed to have another chat with Chesty. They didn’t teach you these things in OCS.
His thoughts were jolted by the sudden shock of an alarm.
Squad Bay, E-DARES Facility
Ice Station Zebra, Europa
0942 hours Zulu
They were fully suited up except for gloves and helmets. Second Platoon, First section had the “Alert Five,” meaning they were suited and ready to cycle out onto the surface in five minutes. It made card playing a bit clumsy, but there was damned little else to do, sitting for six hours at a stretch waiting for something to happen.
Lucky was riding on a full house, but the others didn’t know that yet. The pot was big and getting bigger, and he could taste the winnings now.
“Two,” Wojak said. He accepted the cards from Peterson, who was dealing. “The way I see it,” he continued, “is that Earth’s gotta send a relief ship, and when they do, the Charlies’ll pack up and move out of town. They’ve only got the two A-M cruisers, right? I’ll see you, Lucky, and raise you five.”
