“I read about Elysium in the Marine Corps Times,” he said, suddenly serious. He pointed to her chest and asked, “Is that the . . .”
“The Star of Nikólaos. Yes.”
“Pretty gaudy, huh?”
“You should see the medal itself.”
Esther had been awarded the Star by the Elysium government after the fight on Mount Zeus. As a foreign award, it has a lower precedence than any of her Federation medals, but it was quite rare for a Marine to have one. On the top of her ribbon bar was her Navy Cross with a gold star in lieu of a second award, and that was even rarer, but not nearly so exotic.
“I did. The Times had a holo of the ceremony. But what are you doing here?”
“Oh, just passing through. I’m going back in the morning.”
“In the morning? So soon? Well, then, you’ve got to come to the club. A bunch of us are getting together,” he said, slipping his arm through hers and pulling lightly towards the O-Club.
Esther hesitated, the pizza calling her, but the idea of socializing with other Marines was tempting. She relented and let him lead her off as he started waxing rhapsodic about his rifle company. She felt only the tiniest twinge of jealousy which she quickly subverted.
Falcon led her into the ancient club, and as always, Esther could feel the thousands upon thousands of officers who’d walked through the front doors. Growing up in the shadow of the club, it had always taken on an almost church-like air, something she’d never shaken.
Not that it was solemn. As they entered the Chase Regan Room, shouts of “Falcon” rang out. Everyone probably knew who she was, at least by reputation, but as a classmate, Falcon had the honors of introducing her to the officers of Second Battalion, First Marines. Someone shoved a beer in her hands, and Esther felt the stress of the mission on Kepler 9813-B just slough away. The other officers welcomed her as if she was part of the battalion, and no one bugged her about her Navy Crosses or told her how they’d served with her father. She was just a Marine, like any other. And when she offered to buy the next round for the battalion, the cheers almost made her choke up.
Come on, Lysander! Don’t be maudlin! she told herself, but she accepted the toast they gave her with the beer she bought them.
The battalion was there for a hail and farewell, where goodbyes were made to those leaving and new officers were officially welcomed aboard. Esther personally only knew Falcon, but she knew Marines, and when the Ops O was getting his farewell, the XO, who she found out was the somewhat renowned (or infamous, depending on who was telling the story) Marine Major Timothy William McKenna, shared a story about him getting his clothes stolen at the hot springs on Theo’s World and somehow making it back sight unseen to the camp stark naked, she laughed with the rest of them. The story, told with much humor, was simply so Marine.
After the official hail and farewell, the partitions in the rooms were recessed, opening it up to the bar proper. A squadron had just finished its own hail and farewell, and it turned out that both the battalion and the squadron XOs were Academy classmates. Both units started mixing with about ten of them joining the two majors, who were somewhat two sheets to the wind by then, in singing songs at the top of their voices.
Esther had switched to cider and sat back at a table with Falcon and three of his lieutenants, simply drinking in the scene. She hadn’t realized how much she missed this type of camaraderie until just now, and she really didn’t want to go back to her desk on Mars, waiting for someone to break her glass.
“Can I get you another?” Second Lieutenant Velma George asked, her eyes eager.
The whip-thin lieutenant had sat with her for the last fifteen minutes, saying nothing, but watching Esther intently. She could see the hero-worship in the young woman’s eyes, and for once, it didn’t bother her.
“No,” she said, “but I’ll buy if you fly.”
The lieutenant’s eyes lit up and she almost jumped at the chance to serve the reasonably famous Esther Lysander.
Right, I’m so freaking famous. Get real, Lysander, Esther thought reminding herself that she was just one more Marine, no more, no less.
“Take him, major!” voices rang out.
Over by the bar, the two XO’s were squaring off with other Marines making a ring with their bodies.
“Oh, this isn’t going to be pretty,” another of the lieutenants said. When Esther looked up at him with a questioning look, he added, “Major McKenna was sixth in the Federation in wrestling, ma’am. Back when he was at the Academy.”
That caught her attention. She’d been a Fourth Team All-Federation volleyball player and a Second Team All-Planet Etherball player while at the University of Michigan, and she still loved university-level sports.
It was over almost before it began. Major McKenna rushed the squadron XO, grabbed him around the chest, and with a textbook soufflé, slammed the man hard onto the deck to the collective groans of the watchers.
“Revenge!” one of the airedales shouted, and in a moment, the pilots were jumping on the grunts.
There were no fists being swung, but that didn’t mean there was no damage being done. One of the airedale captains flipped one of the battalion captains, his feet crashing down on Esther’s table, scattering their drinks and snapping a good meter off the edge of the tabletop.
“Come on, ma’am!” the lieutenant who’d told her the XO had been a wrestler shouted.
Without hesitation, Esther jumped to her feet, ignoring the cider that had spilled onto her Charlies blouse. She wasn’t a member of the battalion, but they’d welcomed her. Besides, airedales could never be allowed to beat grunts, not in the universe according to Esther.
She grabbed a lieutenant by the shoulder, spun him around, and with a deft heel trip, sent the surprised young man down on his ass. Over by the bar, Major McKenna, his blouse torn, and three more officers, were facing an advancing horde of pilots. Esther started to wade in when someone grabbed her from behind. Whoever it was was ungodly strong, much stronger than she was. She tried to stomp on the man’s feet, but he was laughing as he danced back and forth, hopping each foot out of the way of her strikes.
Esther tried to pull something out of her MCAP training, but whoever was holding her had the same training, and he was simply overpowering her—until he wasn’t. Someone had pulled him off of her. Esther didn’t even turn but lunged forward to grab one of the airedales by the collar and yanking him back.
“The MP’s have been called and will be here immediately. Stop what you are doing and await their arrival,” an amplified voice reverberated throughout the club.
Marines froze where they were, making an odd tableau. Slowly, each of them started to straighten up.
“Run away!” someone shouted.
Major McKenna pushed through the pilots in front of him, picked up the squadron XO, and together, they started to run to the entrance, immediately followed by the mass of officers. As the two majors reached the doors, they turned and in unison, shouted, “Bulk Fuel rules” before wheeling back around and out of the Club.
Esther had to vault a couple of broken chairs, but she found herself in a group of Marines and a chaplain, all laughing as they hooted and shouted “Bulk Fuel!”
Esther laughed at the weak attempt at subterfuge. Bulk Fuels was the logistics company, mostly manned by civilians, that purchased and distributed liquid fuels. With only a major and a lieutenant as officers, she could imagine the poor major being called on the carpet by the commanding general for wrecking the club.
Out on the grass, she swung to head to the BOQ when a squadron captain grabbed her by the upper arm and said, “Come on. Bryant’s got a ute.”
A rational person would simply say no and return to her room and try to avoid trouble. But Marines were never known for their rationality. The other captain said Bryant, whoever that was, had a utility hover, and that was good enough for her.
She took a quick glance for Falcon, but when she didn’t see him, followed the rest, and within
moments, nine of them were crammed into a Swoosh utility hover designed for four.
“Where’re we going?” someone crammed under Esther asked as Bryant started up his Swoosh.
“To S-Ville, of course. There’s still more drinking that’s got to be done, and we’re the ones to do it!”
That sounded copacetic to her. Esther pushed the knee that was digging into her back and settled in for what looked to be a long night without sleep.
JULIETTE PRIME
Chapter 27
Esther waited in the anteroom. A single, well-dressed young man with a decided air of danger stood silently by the door, hands folded in front of him in what might look like a relaxed posture, but one from which Esther knew he could spring into action. She tried to ignore him, which was pretty difficult. Esther was middling confident as to her hand-to-hand capabilities, but she instinctively knew that with her guard/guide, she was way out of her league.
Lucky for me I’m here on official business, she told herself as she couldn’t keep from glancing up at him again.
After her Kepler 9813-B interlude serving with Marines again, it was back to her routine, divorced from the Corps. This was her fifth courier mission, a “mule mission,” as they called it back on Mars. These were boring, mundane missions that Esther didn’t understand. She was pretty sure all she’d carried to the Grand Meister were documents and a molecular drive. She couldn’t be sure, as while she was cleared to carry the “bindle,” she was not cleared to know what it was she was carrying.
With hadron messaging, the only possible way for someone to intercept a message or document would be if they had stolen one of the other repeaters in the nest. There were no transmissions that could be intercepted, so if all the repeaters were kept in secure locations, messages and documents would be safe from prying eyes. And as Major Lent had mentioned over lunch the week before, couriers were not as secure. The bindles were locked to the courier’s left arm, but a simple hack with a machete, and someone with ill intentions could at least take possession of one. Whether they could open the case without detonating the interior charge was another matter, but at least there was the possibility, no matter how slight, of that.
She idly twirled the snake around, letting it rise, then catching the “head” as it fell. She dropped it, then repeated the process. The “tail” of the snake was locked into the bracelet around her wrist; the head was now free, waiting for the return of the bindle, which she’d given to the Grand Meister’s lackey.
The first time she’d been a courier, she’d felt a little thrill of excitement back in Brussels as the bindle was attached to her wrist and the bio-lock programmed into the release. This was more like all the spy flicks she’d seen over the years. It hadn’t taken long to realize that she’d never done anything so boring in her life. She was not allowed to take her personal PA, only a shielded diplomatic PA. She was not allowed into the ship’s messes—food was brought to her berth. She was stuck with the basic entertainment channels in her berth and physical books.
Her second mule mission had been to New Vegas—why there, she couldn’t even come up with a reason after letting her imagination run rampant—and she hadn’t been able to sample the famous nightlife. She’d been driven in a blacked out-hover, waited for 12 long hours in a secure room much like she was in now, then driven back to catch another ship back to Earth.
Now she was sitting in Juliette Prime, the first and still central station in the group. At least this made a little more sense. The Juliette Group was ostensibly neutral, but rumors had run rampant that her father’s escape from Juliette 2 during the initial stages of the Evolution had been facilitated by Glenda Henricks-Pata, the Station 2 meister. There had been a degree of a “special relationship” between the Juliettes and the Federation ever since.
Esther first tour had been with First Battalion. Sixteenth Marines onboard Wayfarer Station, which couldn’t hold a candle to Juliette Prime, at least according to reports. She’d really like to play tourist, even for a few hours, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
And she was right. The door to the room opened, and a nervous-looking middle-aged man, his too-thin face compressed into a grimace as he came in and gingerly handed the bindle to her.
Esther had opened it for the same man when she’d arrived. Once opened, the bindle was safe from its little destructive surprises. She’d instructed the still unnamed man on how to seal it when finished, and she had to assure him several times that sealing it could not activate any of the security measures. And once sealed again, not even Esther could open it, so if the Grand Meister wanted anything sent back to the Chairman, the bindle had to be left open until whatever was put inside.
The man watched in almost morbid fascination as Esther connected the snakehead to the bindle’s connector ball. Within moments, it had melded itself into the ball, molecularly bonding with it. Until Esther was back in Brussels, the bindle might as well be part of her body.
“Well, Mz. Patterson, thank you for delivering your package to the Grand Meister. Mr. de Gruit will now escort you to your ride back. Have a safe journey.”
He nodded and left while her guard held the door open for her.
Nice to have a name, at least, she thought as she left the room.
Mr. de Gruit led her down a long, windowless passage. A door blocked the end.
He leaned in for a retinal scan, and as the door opened, said, “If you please, Mz. Patterson,” in a surprisingly soft and almost effeminate voice that totally clashed with his deadly air.
Esther almost laughed out loud, but she stepped into the back seat of the waiting two-man hover. De Gruit held open the door before walking to the other side and getting in, sitting beside her. He didn’t voice any obvious instructions, but the hover rose and took off.
“So, have you been a Julietter all your life?,” she asked, wondering if he’d respond.
“Born and raised,” he said in the same soft voice. “I love it here.”
Esther had thought he might not answer. The “quiet” and “dangerous” pairing was somewhat of a Hollybolly trope, after all. Evidently, de Gruit was not familiar with the trope, because he opened up about his life on Juliette Prime. His eyes were constantly moving, constantly taking in the surrounding area, but he chatted as if they were old friends.
Where was this chatterbox while I waited for 12 hours in the room? she wondered. I could have used the company. Maybe I just had to ask a question to get him going.
Juliette Prime was a spiral station, with terminals jutting out from the central habitat. The tiny hover skipped past security at the base of one of the terminals and proceeded to the end.
“Have a wonderful trip, Anna,” Tater de Gruit said, holding open the door.
“Thanks. I intend to, Tater,” she said.
She’d felt Tater had been somewhat menacing back while she’d waited. Now, in 15 short minutes, it was like they were old friends. He still was a dangerous man, she knew, but at the same time, he was a “good guy.”
Tater escorted her to the gate, swiped his card, and let her into the gantry. The ticket agents didn’t give either of them a second glance. Esther turned once to wave at him, then continued on to the ship’s main hatch.
The next yeoman in a line of them barely glanced at her readout, scanned her ticket, then said, “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to your stateroom.
Pretty fancy, she thought. A live escort?
Couriers could be assigned to any kind of craft, from military to freighters to liners, but even most liners had guided follow-mes to guide passengers to their berthing. This liner was obviously a step up, and as she followed her guide, she quickly realized that this was more than a single step up in class. This was a luxury liner, with emphasis on the “luxury.”
“And to your right, Madam, is the Grand Ballroom. The Welcome Aboard reception will start at 1600, ship’s time. That’s 4:00 PM. Just query your PA, which will automatically synch to ship’s time to ensure you
don’t miss any of the ship’s activities.”
The passage skirted the ballroom, separated by plastiglass. A decent-sized stage graced the opposite side of the ballroom, and at the far end was a bar that put most other bars she’d seen to shame. At least a hundred people were already there, looking like they were getting an early start to the reception.
Not for me, though, Esther told herself with only a slight hint of self-pity. Looks pretty copacetic to me, I’d have to say.
Farther aft and up a deck, her guide keyed open her stateroom. He asked Esther to scan her eyes, assuring her that only the cleaning staff would have access to her room, and then only if she requested service.
The stateroom was not obnoxiously luxurious, but it bespoke quality. The far side, under a faux window, which now showed the view from the ship towards the central station, was a queen-sized bed, her small valise centered perfectly on it. There was a small sitting area with a couch and a desk, then a small, but complete head with a sonic shower and what looked to be a real water-tub.
“If you need anything else, simply ask your stateroom. Someone will attend to your needs. And thank you for choosing Ambrosia Lines.”
He gave the briefest of glances at her bindle. He had to know she was a courier even if not for whom she worked, and so he knew she had no choice as to which ship she took back to Earth, but still forms had to be followed. Esther was tempted to tip him from her own funds, but he undoubtedly made more than she did, and she knew the travel office would take care of it, so she thanked him and closed the door behind him.
Now what?
Esther was in a pretty good mood. Mule duty was a pain, but her surprising conversation with Tater de Gruit on the way over, then the opulence of her ship had a way of making her forget that. She wasn’t going to be able to explore the ship, but it could be worse.
She hesitated. She was hungry, but that bathtub was calling her name. She asked the room to run her water at 44 degrees, then started the process of taking off her clothes. The tricky part was to get the three layers of tops off, but they were designed to get around her bindle, even if it took some effort. Within a few moments, she was luxuriating in the bath, her left arm over the edge and out of harm’s way.
Esther's Story: Special Duty (The United Federation Marine Corps' Lysander Twins Book 4) Page 14
