Marine

by Joshua Dalzelle

  "Explosive decompression is a nasty way to die."

  "I doubt I'd even notice right now. So, what's on your mind, Corporal?"

  "You read my filed report of what I saw on the Endurance?" Taylor asked. Shit. Jacob had forgotten all about the fact he was supposed to do follow-up debriefs with his team.

  "To be honest, Taylor, the way you've been dying to tell me what you saw your report was a little…light," he said.

  "I don't think the Endurance was attacked by an alien ship," Taylor said.

  "I'm listening."

  "The hull rupture we came in through? The one that just happened to be near a critical power junction that took out the whole shipboard grid? The damage and blast discolorations tell me that it was caused by an explosion from inside the ship," Taylor said. "At first, I thought it might have been some sort of critical failure that caused the blowout, but there was nothing in that area that could have ripped the outer hull apart like that. Someone planted a high-power explosive on the inside of the hull."

  "This doesn't explain why the crew is missing," Jacob pointed out.

  "I didn't claim it did," Taylor countered. "I'm just telling you the facts that I am sure of. I'm not qualified to speculate past that."

  "Okay, so why the big secret?" Jacob asked. "I feel like this is something that you should have just mentioned right away without the big dramatic buildup."

  "I would have, but I wanted to talk to you in private…away from Murph," Taylor said. Now that perked Jacob right up.

  "Murph?"

  "Yeah. I had mentioned what we found to him and he cornered me and MG." Taylor was obviously uncomfortable tattling on his NCO, but he apparently felt strongly enough about what he'd found to skip it up the chain. "He got real intense, told us we didn't know what the fuck we were talking about and, if we were smart, we'd not mention anything to you or Captain Mosler about it. When you asked everyone for a written debrief, he made sure we filtered those through him first."

  "Interesting," Jacob said, struggling to stay neutral. "Well, you did the right thing. The chain of command exists for a reason, but in a unit this small, I'm running an open-door policy. Don't worry about Murph. He'll never know you came to talk to me about this."

  "Thanks, sir." Taylor seemed to sag in relief. "So, what do you think? About the explosion, I mean?"

  "I believe you," Jacob said. "And I think you found a critical clue as to what happened aboard that ship. Just as soon as I think I can make it to the bridge without shitting blood, I'll talk to Captain Mosler about it and see what he thinks."

  "Yeah, if they'd have told me about this part I would have never enlisted," Taylor said, sounding genuinely sympathetic. "The good news is that once you shake off all the diseases they pumped into you, and the nanobots finish nesting in your digestive tract, you'll never get food poisoning again when you go back home. Roadkill, actual garbage, Cincinnati-style chili, doesn't matter. Whatever you swallow, they'll kill it."

  "Good to know," Jacob said. "Now get out of here and let me die in peace."

  Once Taylor was gone and the hatch had slid closed, Jacob reached over to the bulkhead panel and locked it. The fact that he'd caught Murph tampering with the Corsair's avionics and the sergeant had tried to intimidate his subordinates into suppressing critical information could not be mere coincidence. Mosler had wanted to keep an eye on him just in case he hadn't actually been doing anything wrong in the avionics bay, but now Jacob felt Murph was too big a risk to allow him to roam free on the ship.

  It was something he would have to take up with his CO again and try to convince him that Murph needed to at least be confined to quarters pending an investigation. Unfortunately, he hadn't been joking with Taylor. Any trip to the bridge to discuss anything with his boss would have to wait until he was feeling a little more chipper. As he drifted off to sleep again, he was comforted by the hope that Murph wasn’t the suicidal type of fanatic who would sabotage an interstellar ship in slip-space while he was still on it.

  Chapter 11

  "So, we're about to drop out of slip-space in the Niceen system and you haven't figured out a damn thing…in the last fifteen days?"

  "No, sir," Jacob ground out, the words tasting like ash as he was forced to admit complete failure to his commanding officer. "I've questioned Sergeant Murphy twice regarding the incident in the avionics bay but he's got this…odd…way of being able to either turn the conversation around so that I feel like I'm being questioned, or he slips out of it altogether without actually answering a question."

  "I'm hearing a lot of fucking excuses here, Lieutenant." Mosler glared at him. "If you don't get control of your team and exert your authority, one of your NCOs will do it for you. They already probably don't think much of you because you're a brand-new lieutenant, you've never actually gone through special forces indoc training, and you've been pretty vocal with your whining about not wanting to be in the Corps. Now you have one of your sergeants going behind your back and running your team and you don't seem to have any answers."

  "Yes, sir." Jacob had more to say, he just wasn't sure how to say it without it coming across like another excuse. It also burned him that his captain was right: he didn't have control of his tiny little four-man team. His two NCOs were handling him while Murph was the one actually calling the shots.

  "That doesn't necessarily make you any different than any other butter bar that's ever had to come in and manage a bunch of grunts, but this job is different…and you were supposed to be different." Mosler continued to grind his heel on Jacob's ego. "When Webb yanked you out of the Academy early and sold me on taking you on because of your…talents, he assured me you would be able to hit the ground running. Damnit, Jake, this job isn't just about how much you can bench or how fast you can run, you need to be a leader."

  "You've got me over a barrel here, sir," Jacob said finally. "I'm not sure what you want me to do about our immediate situation." Mosler seemed to deflate a bit as he contemplated Jacob's words.

  "Sergeant Murphy is a highly decorated Marine who has been on my crew for over a year without so much as being late for a shift," he said. "You've brought some serious accusations against him. It's up to you to prove that there's enough there for me to make it official and begin an inquiry that—even if we're wrong—will ruin his career. NAVSOC is supposed to be above those types of petty considerations, but the reality is that if I went around bringing up my operators on espionage charges without solid evidence, they'll run me right out the door as well.

  "I guess I may as well tell you now that there's nothing actionable from the avionics box you pulled off the Corsair. When the Sunder's backshop began to probe around, it triggered a failsafe and the suspect part destroyed itself. Webb has people backtracking the components through the supply chain, but that's not likely to be much of a help."

  "So, without something more solid on why Murph was digging around in that box we don't have anything actionable," Jacob said.

  "Right," Mosler said. "Sure, I could drag Murph in here and try to make him talk, but your team would then know you ran to me and that I was coming down on one of them, because of you. If you think they don't respect you now, wait until something like that and see how it goes. They may frag your ass for it." Jacob gulped but said nothing. He was aware of fragging, but it was always more of an urban legend among cadets than anything else. What it meant was that if Jacob's team felt he was putting their lives or their mission at risk, they'd kill him and call it an accident.

  "I'd like to avoid that if possible," Jacob said.

  "Glad to hear it. We land on Niceen-3 in two days. I'd appreciate it if you could either give me some sort of evidence that Murph is tampering with my ship or, barring that, clear him completely so I can tell the computer to stop monitoring his every movement. I've also had Scarponi working sixteen hours a day going over every square inch of this tub to make sure there aren't any other questionable parts on her. I'm sure he'd appreciate the chance to get some sleep.
" Jacob was surprised to learn that Mosler had at least taken some steps to mitigate any risk Murph may pose. He'd been under the impression the captain was just letting him flounder on his own. "How's your mission planning coming?"

  "Good, sir. The fact this team has already been to Niceen-3 and has some familiarity with the planet has helped." Jacob had gotten used to the abrupt subject changes when talking to Mosler. "We're keeping this as straightforward as possible. We'll go through immigration control using the same documents they used the last time to avoid any issues with secondary security protocols like biometric scanners or facial recognition. Humans are still rare enough in this part of the quadrant that there won't be many on record."

  "Sensible," Mosler said. "They didn't make too much trouble here last time so you shouldn't be detained."

  "If that doesn't work, we'll bribe our way in." Jacob shrugged. Scout Fleet's intel on Niceen-3 was complete enough that he'd even been able to determine how large a bribe he should offer so that it was accepted without haggling, but not so large that they'd have him jumped outside the starport for more. Team Obsidian had been through this region twice before, and MG assured him that getting through the checkpoints was just a formality.

  "Just because this seems like a straightforward grab, don't get complacent," Mosler warned. "I've met the target before. She doesn't spook easily, and if she's reaching out for help, there's a damn good reason for it."

  "That brings up something that's been bothering me," Jacob admitted. "Why would she reach out to us at all? No offense, sir, but as relative newcomers on the scene, I would think she'd have called someone a little more established than us."

  "Like I said: she has a good reason for everything she does," Mosler said. "I couldn't guess why she reached out to us, nor am I particularly interested. Once we turn her over on Terranovus, she's someone else's problem."

  "Yes, sir." Jacob stood when Mosler did, assuming the briefing was over.

  "Stand by for mesh-in," Sully's voice came over the intercom. "Welcome back to the Kaspian Reaches, everyone. I hope your wills are updated."

  "You ready for this, LT?" MG asked with a huge, wide smile.

  "Good to go," Jacob said, trying to inject as much confidence into his voice as he could muster. The Corsair had been cleared to land almost as soon as they'd hit their holding orbit, and Sully wasted no time bringing the ship down for a smooth landing on their assigned pad. As soon as the landing gear touched the tarmac, Jacob's anxiety had spiked. No more training, no more lectures, no more talking. He was about to set foot on an alien planet as a member of a military special operations unit, and he couldn't have felt more unqualified for the job he was now being asked to do.

  Before they'd landed, Mosler ordered Mettler to give Jacob one more scan in the infirmary to make sure he could safely operate in an alien biosphere. When that had checked out, he'd greenlit the operation and told Jacob he had seventy-two hours to grab the target and get back to the Corsair. After the final mission brief and equipment check, they were now standing just inside the pressure doors and waiting for Mosler to lower the cargo ramp.

  "Ground Team, you're clear to disembark," Mosler's voice came over their coms. "Good luck and don't drag this out. We want to be gone as quickly as possible. Corsair Actual, out." Due to security concerns and the practicality of trying to maintain a constant com link, once the team left the Corsair, they'd be out of contact with Captain Mosler unless there was an emergency.

  Jacob jumped slightly as the cargo ramp lurched and yawned open with a whine of hydraulic actuators. When the pressure doors cracked open and the cool, dry air of Niceen-3 rolled in, Jacob tamped down his panic reflex and allowed it to be pulled into his lungs, and then promptly began gagging and coughing.

  The smell. Oh, holy shit…the horrible, God-awful, mind-altering smell.

  While the others laughed and high-fived each other, Jacob had to concentrate on taking shallow breaths through his mouth so he didn't pass out. Eventually, his sense of smell began to attenuate the stench wafting in and he was able to breathe normally without gagging.

  "Just a little initiation, LT," Murph said. "All these planets have their own unique stench about them. Niceen-3's just happens to be a little worse than most."

  "Good times," Jacob said hoarsely. "Any other surprises?"

  "The oxygen content is a bit low on this planet," Murph said seriously. "It's not much, but you'll feel it if you have to exert yourself for any length of time."

  "I can handle that," Jacob said. "Alright, enough fucking around. Let's get this job started so we can get it finished."

  Niceen-3 wasn't what Jacob expected when he'd been told about how lawless and dirty the Kaspian Reaches were by Mosler and Murph. He figured it would be dirty, rundown, and something like a scene from the American Wild West but with aliens instead of cowboys. What he saw was a bustling modern city that was breathtaking, if somewhat sterile. The spires of the buildings near the urban center reached hundreds of meters into the sky, and Jacob could see the tracks of the public transport mag-lev trains flowing into the epicenter like veins.

  Once they cleared through the immigration control checkpoint with shocking ease, Jacob could begin to sense something…off…about the city. He realized the sterility he'd felt at first glance was probably due to the fact that everything appeared to be new. The decorative pavers on the walking paths, the glass partitions that separated the passenger platform from the mag-lev tracks, signs that directed pedestrians where to go, all of it looked like it had been installed at the same time, and recently.

  "Is the whole planet like this city?" Jacob asked, noticing that a group of aliens they'd just passed were scarred up and appeared to be hiding weapons under their clothing.

  "You mean full of aliens?" Murph asked.

  "What? No, I sort of assumed an alien planet would come populated with aliens. I'm talking about how clean and…new…everything is," Jacob said.

  "So, you're fine being stuck in the middle of all these strange looking beings?" MG asked. "Not feeling panicky or overwhelmed?"

  "What is this? You guys fucking with me right now?" Jacob asked, noticing the look exchanged between his two noncoms.

  "Just asking," Murph said. "This is your first time out in the wild. Having your psych battery say you're fit for off-world duty is one thing, actually being out here is totally different."

  "If I didn't have the neural implant running real-time translation it would probably be a bit scary, but this isn't so bad." Jacob shrugged. "Actually, none of the aliens here look as exotic as I assumed they would."

  "Apex beings that evolve on Earth-type worlds tend to conform to a few general types, bilateral symmetry with two legs being one of the most common," Mettler said. "There are some wild looking ones out there, but they'll usually stick together. Apparently, there are a ton of planets with intelligent insectoid life, but their planets usually have an atmosphere that makes them undesirable, so they're left alone."

  "Is anyone going to answer my damn question?" Jacob asked.

  "Huh? Oh… No, this city is unique," MG said. "The Reaches are controlled by overlapping syndicates, each run by its own kingpin. The boss that runs Niceen likes to fancy himself a legitimate businessman and has spent an unbelievable amount of money building this city and making sure everyone plays nice within it, but make no mistake, this place is dangerous."

  The team left street level and made their way up the wide stairs to the mag-lev platform to wait for the next train that would take them into the city proper. The ubiquitous mag-levs were far and away the most common form of mass transit within ConFed controlled space. They were cheap to build, reliable, safe, and lasted forever since the train never actually touched the track. Some of the lines on the older Core Worlds had been in service for hundreds of years with only general maintenance. Jacob had read that the same systems were already replacing traditional trains back on Earth in some of the larger cities.

  "Standard spread?" Taylor as
ked.

  "Two groups, same train, different cars," Jacob said. Standard operating procedure for Obsidian would have been to split up into singles or pairs and take two different trains. It helped them detect and shake off anybody that might be tailing them and made sure that nobody saw them together, thus making it impossible to associate them with each other. Jacob decided against that given his status as a rookie and the fact that the humans were already getting enough curious looks as it was. He assumed that was because there just weren't that many humans outside of the Solar System just yet and most of those were serving aboard capital starships, not skulking around in the Kaspian Reaches.

  "We'll go to the forward part of the platform," Murph said, grabbing Taylor and Mettler. Jacob had noticed the look between him and MG again and decided not to make an issue about it unless one of them actually started questioning his orders.

  "This is going fairly smooth," MG said quietly once the train set off towards the city.

  "It also seems like it would be the easiest part," Jacob said. "If anybody were going to intercept us, I doubt it would be so close to the main starport."

  "True," MG conceded. "You ever see a Veran before?" Jacob's head snapped up before he remembered that their objective was a Veran female. The fact was that he had seen one before, the same place and time he'd seen his first battlesynth when his father had stopped by for a visit, but there's no way MG could know about that. Hell, even Captain Webb didn't know about the brief, late-night visit. He thought it was an odd coincidence that within the span of weeks he had met members from two very different alien species, both of which were also represented on his father's tiny crew.

  "Four arms, pale green skin?" Jacob asked. "I've read about them."

  "They're an odd species," MG went on. "When they—"

  "I don't think it's a good idea to be discussing this particular subject in public," Jacob cut him off. "Given how few of this species are likely here, it would sort of narrow down what we're here to do, wouldn't it?"