Derelict: Marines (Derelict Saga Book 1)

by Paul E. Cooley

  “Fuck,” Elliott said. “Man, if I’d been in that as a kid, I sure as shit would’ve become a miner instead.”

  “Shit, Dickerson, why didn’t you tell me that a long time ago?” Carbonaro asked.

  He rubbed his chin and absently played with the cards strewn across the tabletop. “Didn’t seem to matter. She’s a green NCO. We always give them hell. And combat z-g training is supposed to be hell anyway. We try and wash them out, they try and find a way to survive.” He picked up a suicide jack and tossed it. The card hit the table and slid across the surface to Carbonaro. Dickerson grinned. “That’s fun and it’s the routine. But if we’re going on a mission, that shit needs to stop.”

  Carbonaro took another hit. “Okay. Agreed.” She passed it to Wendt. “I’ll let the others know.”

  “Besides,” Dickerson said, his grin fading into a concerned frown. “Taulbee and Gunny will absolutely eviscerate us if we pull that shit in the field.”

  Wendt, Elliott, and Carbonaro laughed. A moment later, Dickerson joined them. He checked his block and realized he had thirty minutes to flush and prepare for the briefing. “Okay. I’m going to go get pretty for the briefing.” He stood from the table and arched his back. “You should probably be doing the same.”

  The three marines still sitting groaned, flipped him the bird, and went back to the vape. Dickerson shook his head and headed to a flush station. At least he’d be relaxed at the briefing, which was more than he could say for Kalimura. He imagined she’d be grinding her teeth through the entire meeting. Failure does that. Makes you remember your fuckups while you’re staring another opportunity right in the face. He just hoped she could put today’s exercise behind her long enough to succeed in the field. That’s what really mattered. He hoped like hell she knew it, too.

  Chapter Eight

  Taulbee stood at the front of the room and rubbed his eyes. He was tired. Between working with Cartwright the night before on training scenario ideas, the morning’s disastrous training at the dome, and the sudden need to put together a fake briefing, he was exhausted. Although Gunny would never admit it, he was sure Cartwright was just as run down as he was.

  The trick, of course, was to keep your fatigue hidden from the troops. It was one thing to crack a smile every now and then, or get in their faces to correct a mistake. But to let them see you weak? That invited disrespect or, even worse, mistrust. Taulbee knew from experience that once you lost the trust of a unit, it was nearly impossible to get it back.

  His first “cruise” as a 2nd lieutenant, he’d watched a captain flush out when the man failed to keep his cool during an assault near the Phobos Mining Station. After the battle had ended, it was clear he’d lost all the officers, not to mention the NCOs. He asked for a transfer and it was immediately granted. Taulbee didn’t plan on experiencing the same fate.

  He ran checks through his block and the holo terminal. They were in sync. When Captain Dunn arrived, they’d sync blocks and everything would go great for the briefing. He hoped he’d done enough to make it sound like the Captain had put together the briefing, and more importantly, that Dunn would be able to rattle it off as his own plan. That bit was important for the ruse to succeed.

  Not much of a ruse, he thought. The briefing would be pretty short and stupid simple. S&R Black had had too much rack time and the brass wanted to send them out past Pluto for a little live training. That made sense to a certain extent. There were many dead satellites and other human-made junk out there to play with. Taulbee had even put together a scenario for boarding one of the sats, tethering it, and retrieving it into the S&R Black’s cargo hold. He wasn’t certain the Captain would use that idea, but it could be entertaining.

  Portunes had already forwarded him the logistics list the AI and Captain Dunn had come up with. Thus, he already had marching orders for everyone involved. Now the only question was when to begin the load out. According to the last stat-report Lieutenant Nobel submitted, S&R Black was 20 standard hours away from being ready. If, that was, they didn’t run into any major SNAFUs.

  While the Navy maintenance folks hadn’t taken great care of their girl, Portunes did. The AI was nothing if not efficient when it came to finding problems humans created and quickly devising a solution to fix them. In some ways, he wished Portunes was their exclusive AI.

  Regardless, the ship would be ready if they could get her stocked and loaded in time for departure 20 hours from now. They’d make it. Colonel Heyes had told the other teams to drop everything they were working on that wasn’t station critical to get S&R Black ready for work.

  Dunn had lobbied months ago to get an in-flight training regimen going for his people and the other S&R crews. Between budget concerns and the probability of injury or death, SF Gov had nixed the idea. Taulbee had helped the Captain put together the proposal and was just as angry as Dunn that it hadn’t been adopted. If it had, they wouldn’t be busting their asses trying to get both the ship and her crew ready for a mission.

  Taulbee triple-checked the visuals, triple-checked the briefing notes with one of Portunes’ minor personalities, and finally stood still. He was done. There was nothing else to prepare, nothing else to check, nothing else to do but wait for the crew to file in.

  As if on queue, Cartwright stepped through the door. He was clean-shaven, dressed in a fresh jumpsuit, and glide-stepping to his place at the front of the room.

  “Gunny,” Taulbee said. The man started to salute, but before Cartwright could raise his hand, Taulbee said, “At ease.” Cartwright stood with his hands behind his back. “You ready for this, Gunny?”

  He might look fresh, but Taulbee could see the strain in his eyes. They’d both pored over so many holos, so many reports and maps over the last many hours, that neither man could see straight. Taulbee hoped his bio-nannies would take care of the problem shortly.

  “Ready, sir,” Cartwright said. “Captain on his way?”

  Taulbee nodded. “I think he’ll probably wait a few extra minutes for the troops to get their asses in here. We didn’t exactly give them much time.”

  “Bullshit,” Cartwright said and then caught himself. “Sorry, Lieutenant. I—”

  Chuckling, Taulbee waved a hand. “We broke them out of leisure time. Knowing those reprobates, they were getting drunk or stoned or both. They’ll all need nannie flushes.”

  “Not all, sir,” Cartwright said. “Kalimura wasn’t in the rec area. I think she went back to work on the reports. Or maybe she went to Dome B. No telling.”

  “Good,” Taulbee said. “She might lose her job, but she’s fighting for it.”

  “Exactly, sir. A good sign.”

  Through the open door, the two men heard the sounds of boots echoing off the grav-plates and muted conversation. Taulbee crossed his arms and waited. He felt Cartwright tensing into attention almost at once. Unless he was alone with commissioned officers he knew, or liked, he never dropped decorum. In front of non-rates and other NCOs, there was no possibility he’d do that. Now he looked more like a drill instructor ready to beat the shit out of any marines that crossed him.

  Eight marines filed into the room one after another. LCpl Dickerson led the group with Private Niro bringing up the rear. When they finished entering the room, the line stopped as one, turned on their heels to face the Lieutenant, and saluted. “Well, about Yahweh-damned time,” Taulbee said. “At ease, marines. Take a seat.”

  The group broke apart, squad members sitting together. A moment later, Kalimura, Nobel, Oakes, and Dunn walked in. Cartwright immediately barked, “Officer on deck!”

  The marines stood and saluted. Dunn, with a look of exasperation on his face, said, “As you were,” in a bemused voice. “Everybody take a seat.”

  Once again, the marines sat in their chairs. Kalimura sat with her squad. Taulbee noticed the spike in tension around that part of the room. He made a mental note to have a conversation with Cartwright and see how he wanted to handle it. They couldn’t go into space on a real missi
on with dissension building amongst Kalimura’s own squad. If they hit the shit with that going on, it could be dangerous. Or downright deadly.

  S&R Black’s pilot, Lieutenant Maurice Oakes, took a seat on the front row along with 2nd Lieutenant Nobel. Since they didn’t have any direct reports, it made sense for them to sit by themselves, although they did sit next to one another. The engineer and the pilot worked side by side since one flew and the other fixed. Despite the difference in rank, the two men had an easy relationship with one another, often dropping decorum, much to Gunny’s chagrin. Taulbee sometimes wondered if the two men weren’t occasional bunkmates.

  Taulbee and Cartwright remained standing by the holo display. Dunn looked chipper, but Taulbee could tell his commanding officer had had a long day. Although he and Cartwright had worked their asses off coming up with a half-believable training scenario to sell to the team, Dunn had been doing the real work with Portunes. Some day, that might be me, he thought to himself. Then again, being captain wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. Dunn spent most of his time on logistics, the ship, and strategies. Taulbee and Cartwright merely had to implement them. And as far as action went? Dunn stayed on the ship.

  He tried to imagine a life without z-g combat, without commanding the troops in the field, let alone seeing the field, and being left behind when the action started. Not for me, he thought. Not for me.

  “Some of you might have guessed,” Dunn said, “that we have a mission. You would be correct.” Taulbee scanned the room, his eyes gauging the response of the marines. The old squads, mainly filled with experienced LCpls, looked happy. Even excited. Kalimura, however, looked nonplussed. Not a good sign.

  “Before you get your hopes up, we’re not going to be storming a pirate ship.” Most of the marines smiled, but said nothing. “Instead, we’re traveling to the outer Kuiper Belt near Pluto for z-g and deep space training. You’re going to get lots of hours in the suits and have a number of tasks to complete.”

  Dunn waved a hand and the holo display came to life. A picture of the belt appeared in the air, slowly rotating. A bright circle lit up near the blue sphere of Pluto, pulsed twice, and then the image zoomed in on the area. With a beautiful facsimile of Pluto rotating in the corner, a red dot appeared in the middle of the display.

  The Captain pointed at it with his finger. “There are ancient pieces of space junk from all the probe missions sent during the latter days of the Common Era and the first century of the Sol Era.” Dunn paused as he looked back at the marines’ faces. The non-rates’ jaws had dropped. Dunn smiled. “Yeah. That stuff has been floating around for a very long time. Needless to say, it’s all defunct and inoperable. But,” he said and turned back to the display, “it will afford us the opportunity for live tether exercises, rescue scenarios, and a lot of z-g action.”

  The marines were silent. Taulbee gazed back at Kalimura as nonchalantly as he could. The young Corporal looked relieved, but that flash of anger was still there. She really needed to learn to let go of her mistakes and move the fuck on. The hell with Gunny, he thought. I’ll talk to her myself.

  “Now,” Dunn said and shifted the display to a diagram of the S&R Black. “Tomorrow we’ll begin a load out. LT Taulbee has the assignments and it will be all hands on deck. I want every piece of equipment going aboard tagged and accounted for. No screw-ups. We’ll be traveling 19 AU, so there’s going to be a significant amount of stasis time.” Dunn paused for effect.

  Taulbee saw looks of both satisfaction and annoyance. The troops had probably thought this would be a near-post mission, or at least something within 5 AU. 19 AU was a long damned way, the same distance between Sol and Uranus. As far as he knew, only he, Dunn, and Cartwright had made trips of that distance in one hop.

  “Before we enter stasis, you’ll receive a much more pointed briefing and have time to study. This will be a very long journey, marines, so make sure you don’t leave anything behind you can’t live without.”

  The marines said nothing, their eyes focused on him. Dunn nodded to himself. “I want to stress this for you new people. Those of you that have been with this team for two or more tours know damned well what I’m about to say. This may be a training mission, but you need to approach it as if it were a real crisis. As I said, we’ll be 19 AU from home, and there’s no one out there to assist us if there’s a problem. So do not take this lightly. Understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir!” the marines yelled as one.

  “Good. Questions?”

  Kalimura raised her hand.

  “Corporal?”

  She stood and cleared her throat. “Sir, will we be formed in our regular squads?”

  Dunn blinked and then glanced at Taulbee. Rolling his eyes, Taulbee stepped forward. “Gunny and I will hand out the duty assignments. As far as you know, nothing will change from our normal training regimen. Does that answer the question?”

  “Aye, sir,” she said and returned to her seat.

  “Any other questions?” Dunn asked the room. Nothing but silence and the barely audible hum of the grav-plates answered in return. “Good. I expect you marines to get some rest. The leisure light is lit for the rest of the evening, but tomorrow at reveille, be prepared to work your asses off. Understood?”

  “Sir, yes, sir.”

  He nodded at them. “Gunny? Dismiss the troops.”

  “Aye, sir,” Gunny said and stepped forward. “S&R Black! On your feet!” The seated marines rose as one. “Nobel and Oakes, stay. The rest of you? Dismissed!”

  “Hoo-hah-BLACK!” the room bellowed. The line of marines assembled by rank and filed out of the room. When the last of them disappeared through the doorway, Dunn waved a hand at the door. It closed automatically.

  The Captain turned and faced the remaining crew. “Let’s everyone take a seat.”

  Taulbee and Cartwright headed to a bank of chairs around a circular table at the back. The rest followed. Once Dunn sat down, he activated a holo display on the table. A diagram of S&R Black appeared along with lists of equipment, status messages, and maintenance logs.

  “I know it’s been a long afternoon,” Dunn said, “and everyone’s probably exhausted. I’ll keep this as short as I can.” He gestured at Oakes. “Lieutenant? Where are we with navigation?”

  Oakes waved a hand at the display, and it immediately changed to show Neptune and the shipyards. Oakes, a large dark-skinned man with pigment blemishes on his arms and neck, pointed at the display. “Sir, I’ve plotted three different courses depending on where you want to land in the Kuiper Belt. All three courses involve the same initial thrust-out from Neptune to escape its gravity and get underway.”

  A tiny shape labeled “Black” appeared next to the shipyards diagram and traveled in a straight line away from Neptune. “It’ll take us two standard hours to exit Neptune space before entering stasis. Once we go into stasis,” he said, “Black will head to Pluto.” He waved in the air and the shape hurled itself toward the far edge of the holo. The display panned to follow the object, keeping it in the center of the image. Taulbee immediately saw why Oakes had chosen the course. The mining lanes for the inner Kuiper Belt were hardly used at the moment, but that didn’t mean navigators could ignore it. S&R Black would travel well beyond the lanes, providing a known safe route. “I’ve already taken the liberty of getting the Colonel to send out an advisory to all mining ships to stay the hell out of our way.”

  Taulbee grimaced. Like they’ll listen, he thought. In the past two standard years, mining ships had had several near misses, as well as one actual collision. Ironically, S&R Black had been the ship to save all the miners on the two vessels. Their parent company had been none too happy with the bill. Hopefully, the smaller mining companies got the message.

  Oakes fast-forwarded the simulation until it displayed Pluto at the far edge. The ship slowed as it neared the icy image. The word “Ion Cutoff” appeared. “We’ll cut the ion drives here and then use Pluto to decelerate. That will put us less than 700 KM f
rom orbit. Once the ship’s speed stabilizes, we’ll come out of stasis here.” A red mark appeared on the display. “After that, we have three paths to choose from.”

  “What’s the chances of us coming dangerously close to any Kuiper Belt Objects?” Taulbee asked the pilot.

  Oakes grinned. “Pretty low. Black should be able to maneuver us around any unexpected objects or shatter storms in the area. If she can’t, then she’ll wake us up ahead of time or attempt to move them out of the way with tethers or projectiles.”

  “Dangerous,” Dunn said. “I’d rather not have Black create a shatter storm by pulverizing a damned ice ball.”

  “Me neither, sir,” Oakes said. “But this is the Kuiper Belt. Black will communicate with Pluto Exo-Observatory to get the best intel it can. If those folks on the station give her the right information, it shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Okay,” Dunn said. “Understood. Continue.”

  “Thank you, sir,” Oakes said. He tapped the air in front of him and three paths appeared. One swirled around Pluto and then cannoned outward to a location well beyond the planet. “This is the shortest path. We use Pluto to slingshot us around and give us enough thrust to reach the target area without touching our fuel reserves to gain speed. However, this does mean that if we don’t have good intel, we could end up in exactly the situation we’re trying to avoid. Kuiper Belt objects are unpredictable, especially with new KBO’s entering the system. So while the known trajectories can be avoided, we can’t really account for what’s made it into the system since the last survey.”

  Dunn nodded. “Okay. Next path?”

  “Path two is a straight shot through the middle belt to the outer. We leave Pluto’s orbit using conventional thrusters, which will chew through a third of our reserves, but allow for much safer maneuvering.”

  “A third of our reserves?” Dunn asked. “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “No,” Oakes agreed, “it’s more fuel than I’d like, but keep in mind we can hit Pluto on the way home and fill up the tanks.”