“No, sir.”
“Two. Gunnery Sergeant Santos lost his left arm and refused an organic because of religious reasons. And you. But the Gunny rides a desk. He isn’t asking to lead a direct-action squad.”
Wyatt glanced out the window. Tiamat basked in a wide band of sunlight now. How he hated that place. Barely habitable, full of roughnecks and lawlessness and pain. The Oscars, the Oxygen Shock Cartel, weren’t the first crime syndicate to steal and extort. They certainly wouldn’t be the last.
Could he really come back? If he got a new squad, it would be full of replacements. Wyatt wouldn’t know most of them anyway. A brand-new squad leader from the academy would command just as much loyalty. A new lieutenant to slog through the oxygenated mush, while Wyatt got a new life on Earth.
Of course Beck was questioning his decision. He didn’t think it made any sense. Just like Wyatt’s mom and dad.
“Sir, may I speak candidly?”
“Go ahead.”
Wyatt fought to make his voice sound natural. “I know my choice is atypical. All the things you’ve said are fair. I am taking it hard about my old squad. I think about them every night. Hal, Francois, James, Elgin. Heath and Berk, my pilots. I drew up and pushed for the mission that killed them. And you’re right, there’s guilt. I’ll live with their deaths for the rest of my life.
“But at the same time, sir, we went into it together, doing something important. I can’t think of a better way to honor them than to come back and keep pushing. Feeling for their loss doesn’t make me a weak leader. It just makes me human.
“I absolutely believe this is what’s meant for me, and that my time with RESIT isn’t done. All I can do is pray for the strength to see it through. And I will. Sir.”
Beck watched him impassively. “I’m impressed, Wyatt. That didn’t sound rehearsed at all.”
Wyatt resisted the urge to shift in his seat again.
The major didn’t look convinced. Wyatt wasn’t sure he was convinced himself. Sweat dripped down his back, tickling his skin.
“Well,” Beck said finally. He stroked his chin under a hard gaze. “I guess it’s your lucky day, Wyatt, because I’ve got a bit of a manpower shortage. I have just the assignment for you. Since you’re here to see it through.”
4
Lost in thought, Wyatt moved through the corridor toward Rec Room A. Beck’s assignment wasn’t at all what he hoped for. He wanted to get back into the action, take the fight to the Oscars. He wanted to rejoin Havoc. Most of all, he wanted to erase the stain of an aggressive mission where the odds were more than happy to catch up. He’d screwed up, and he needed to make it right.
Now he wouldn’t get that chance.
Wyatt thought about what he was leaving behind to stay in RESIT. Parents who wanted him home. A sister who just had a baby. Sara, turning him down and with ring in hand, flatly stating she couldn’t handle having a husband she’d never see. Alone in a spacecraft corridor, it all seemed a poor trade.
Maybe this was all a big mistake.
He stopped in front of the rec room hatch and took a deep breath before pushing it open.
“Lieutenant!”
Carlos saw him immediately. He led the charge of troopers who surrounded Wyatt, hugging and slapping and pounding shoulders. Everyone voiced their excitement that he was back to active duty. Everyone argued over who got to see his prosthetic first. Wyatt found himself grinning in the surge of camaraderie and pulled up his pant leg. He propped his foot up on a supply crate to appease the rabble.
Growing up in the streets of Mexico City, where keeping obsolete equipment running was a life skill, Carlos loved machines. He had a knack for fixing things no matter how bad off they seemed. Now his fingers were all over the prosthetic with a borderline indecency. “What did they give you?”
“Titanium frame. Those synthetic fibers around it? They contract under current, just like a muscle. All I need to do is think what I want it to do.” Wyatt patted the wireless implant at the back of his skull.
“You gotta charge it up?”
“Nope. Kinetic battery. As long as I don’t sleep for a week, it’ll recharge itself a little every time I move.”
“That is badass,” Carlos said. He crouched on one knee and groped the ankle joint with his fingers. “You’re Maximilian, all the way.”
More curious looks and probing fingers. Wyatt removed the protective cowling from the calf to assist in the display. Hardened veterans voiced an ooooh of collective wonder.
“Titanium linkage, nice.”
“Is that fused right to the bone?”
“See how the fibers contract when he points his toes? Do that again, Lieutenant!”
“What’s that thing there do?”
It took ten minutes for the reunion to wind down. Wyatt received the congratulatory welcome backs with genuine delight. As he reassembled his new permanent toy and rolled down his pant leg, he became aware of one last set of eyes staring at him from the adjacent bulkhead.
***
Laramie straightened up as Wyatt walked toward her. She thought she had prepared for this moment. Countless mental run-throughs of what to say, how to act, how to react. Now her mind seemed sluggish and inflexible, rebelling like her muscles did when exercising in the cold.
Keeping her arms folded across her chest felt like poor protection. Laramie peeled them apart and carefully lowered them to her sides.
“Hi, Laramie.”
“LT.” Her voice sounded stiff even to her own ears.
“Looks like I’m back on duty.”
“Yes, sir.”
Wyatt blinked, a wrinkle forming at the bridge of his nose. It took a moment before Laramie understood why. She never called him sir.
A flood of insecurity caught her like a sudden rainstorm. Wyatt was a good man. He had come to their squad at a time when they’d been in desperate need of leadership. They’d worked together now for four years, through countless life-or-death situations. They were practically brother and sister.
The last time she had seen him, Laramie had pulled him from the wreckage of their Javelin, under fire.
The last time she had seen him, she’d made him a cripple.
It felt like such a betrayal. Laramie tried so hard to take care of their squad. Wyatt was part of it. Yet she had hurt him terribly. How did one react to what she did? Stoicism? Avoidance? Did she believe Wyatt could just forgive her for possibly ruining his life?
The silence seemed to stretch for miles between them. Laramie wished he would just start yelling before her false bravery crumbled around her.
Wyatt held out his hand.
She stared at it for a moment, unsure of what to do. Then she extended her own, warily, as if reaching for the tail of a poisonous snake. They gripped palms. Then forearms. Then each other. She could feel the tension drain from her body as he hugged her.
“You saved my life,” Wyatt whispered into her ear. “Thank you.”
“I—” she managed.
They held together for a moment before finally separating. Laramie saw the dampness in his eyes. She could feel the sting in her own. A quick sniff failed to keep her nose from running more than necessary.
“It’s good to be back,” he said.
“Good to have you back. We missed you.” Laramie sniffed again. “I have to say, though, the captain did a decent job running things without you.”
“Chappelle must have been disgusted with you apes.”
“We’re still his apes. Just one level down.” They began to walk along the berth wall until they found relative privacy next to some overstuffed cargo netting. Laramie glanced at her new troopers cleaning their weapons on the other side of the compartment. “He did get us some decent replacements. Green, but decent. You’ll like them.”
Wyatt’s lip turned sour.
Laramie realized she had made a mistake. She held up a hand. “I know. The guys we lost—it’s taken a toll on everyone.”
“Yeah.”
Wyatt cleared his throat. Laramie could tell he was about to do what good soldiers did when emotion peeked over the wall. He was changing the subject.
“Beck’s got a mission for us,” Wyatt said.
She forced a smile, grateful to move on. “The major’s giving you your assignments now? You must be special.”
“Special in the wrong way, maybe. It’s a recon patrol. Out of system.”
“Out of—are you kidding? We’re not rejoining Havoc?” They were up to their eyeballs mopping up Oscars. How could Beck send them away?
“No. Guess where we’re going.”
Laramie stared at him, waiting for the punchline.
“Juliet.”
The words seemed nonsensical. Laramie closed her eyes, subconsciously trying to reduce the stimulation around her and make sense of it all.
“We’re being sent to do a recon on Juliet,” she repeated.
“Yeah.”
“The colony of Juliet. My home.”
“Yes.”
“With twenty million people who live there.”
“I know. It sounds crazy.”
“Like trying to explain water is wet.” Laramie’s hands went to her hips. She felt like she was having some silly playtime conversation with one of her nieces. “LT, if Beck wants intel, I’ll just ask my parents. My dad has the run on everything.”
“When’s the last time you heard from them?”
“I sent them a vid packet… When was it? Three weeks ago? Whenever the last quantum gate window was. I wrote up a deal on our new guys. The Irish kid is a really good shot. My folks are country people—they like to hear about that sort of thing.”
“But did you hear back?”
Laramie frowned. “No, but ... I mean, it’s harvest time, they were probably just really busy.”
“What about anyone else? Brothers? Your sister?”
It was unusual not to hear from Jessamy. No stories. No pics of her boys.
Wyatt searched her face. “Nobody’s responding, Laramie.”
“Nobody?”
Wyatt shook his head. “Nothing through the quantum gate. No freighters. No message buoys. Not even RESIT Team Dagger. Beck wants us to check it out.”
“How long have we been out of contact?”
“Eighty days.”
“That’s not right.” She shook her head, still unbelieving. “We’re doing a recon on Juliet. Who else is going?”
“No one. Just A-Squad.”
“What?”
“Beck said he can’t spare the manpower.”
“He’s not even sending our whole platoon?”
“No.”
“Unbelievable.” Laramie dropped her hands and let out a huff.
Wyatt shrugged. “A meteorite could have taken out the gate’s nav transmitter for all we know. Hopefully it’s nothing. Maybe you’ll get some unofficial leave.”
“Yeah. One squad. They obviously think it’s an important mission.” Her voice dripped the sarcasm she felt.
Wyatt’s cheeks turned a pale shade of red. Instantly Laramie felt like an ass. It wasn’t an important mission. It was a crap mission. And here was her squad leader, making all kinds of sacrifices, doing everything he could to get back in the fight. Major Beck had basically stowed him in the corner. She couldn’t think of anything worse than volunteering in front of everyone and being told you were not allowed to help.
Time to change the subject again.
“I’ll get everyone together for the ops briefing,” she said. She gave him a tight-lipped smile before ambling off.
5
“Knock off the noise,” Laramie yelled. The ready room grew quiet as her troopers clicked into business mode.
She scanned the room. RESIT wasn’t much on formality between ranks—the teams were relatively small, with men and women crammed into insanely close quarters for extended periods of time. But every operation could be exceptionally dangerous. Search-and-Rescue or Interdiction missions in an unforgiving environment meant no room for error, and troopers had to trust each other with their lives.
Yet here sat some new faces who had never worked directly with each other before.
Sergeant Maya Wahine had just been reassigned from RESIT Team Anvil covering Sol. Four years of active duty. Not much direct-action experience. She was short and had the dark complexion of her Polynesian heritage, with her hair hanging to her jawline in the same trooper-cut style Laramie wore. She didn’t talk much. Not really surprising considering she was assigned as their tech expert, a specialization that attracted the thinkers.
Corporal Rahsaan Moore was newly rotated out of Advanced Hard Vacuum Infantry Operations School. AHVIOS was hard to get into. Supposedly that made him top-notch, but he was still green, having been with RESIT for only twenty-three months. Rahsaan was tall, lean, nearly black skin and hair. Sniper- and zero-gee-combat qualified. Spent a lot of time cleaning his Vector. A tattoo of the AHVIOS program’s crossed lances graced his forearm in orange ink.
Lance Corporal Kenny O’Leary was twenty years old and fresh out of RESIT boot camp. He had the red hair and easy manner of his Irish ancestry, not to mention the highest scores for unaided marksmanship out of the whole team. He had sharp eyes that watched everything and everybody.
Corpsman Second Class Isi Watanabe, quickly dubbed “Izzy,” came from Japan and had pale skin and dark eyes. He also was green when it came to space, but Command was so desperate for medical specialists that they had fast-tracked him to Caustic Team. Izzy seemed obsessed with inspecting those around him for ailments and didn’t like to smile.
Thankfully, anchoring the squad were the two veterans, Gavin and Carlos. Gavin was big and tall, born in Texas, with a thick beard that he kept trimmed close enough to not foul his CORE helmet’s respirator. He had a stoic personality, didn’t say much, but was absolutely reliable. Carlos, on the other hand, talked enough for both of them. He was also the squad’s cutup, and Laramie had to rein him in from time to time whenever they were in barracks. Luckily, he was the consummate professional when it came time to work downrange.
Laramie turned her attention back to Wyatt. He was studying each member of A-Squad/1st Platoon, Havoc Company, RESIT Team Caustic. A rebuilt team full of replacements who had never worked together. She wondered what he must be thinking.
Whatever it was, it lay hidden behind the mask of a professional squad leader.
“Team,” he began, “we are performing a reconnaissance mission. Unlike our normal patrol routes, this one will take us out of the Proxima system. This is not a typical assignment we would draw. But Caustic Command feels it’s important, and we go where they tell us.”
Laramie scanned the room and saw everyone listening intently as Wyatt took on a lecturing tone.
“Background is as follows. Interstellar shipping between Proxima and Alpha Centauri A is supposed to run on a repeating, twenty-five-day transit schedule. Lance Corporal O’Leary, why is it twenty-five days?”
“Sir, it takes that long for the quantum gates to reset.”
“Very good. I guess you actually listened in class.” He looked at the other newbies. “Quantum gates come in pairs. Each gate is entangled with the other in ways I will not describe and you will not understand. However, when they fire, a pair of gates allows instantaneous travel from one end to the other. A freighter from Proxima can traverse 13,000 AUs to Alpha A in the blink of an eye. Without the gates, interstellar travel would be impossible. This is what allows the wheels of spaceborne commerce to turn—and for you and me to have a job.”
Carlos chuckled. Laramie gave him the eye.
Wyatt didn’t miss a beat. “That, as you can imagine, takes a lot of beef, Carlos. A transit window can only stay open about ten hours. Then it takes almost a month for the quantum gate to discharge radiation, re-index mapping matrices, certify the reactor for the next go.
“It shouldn’t be a surprise that scheduling a
transit window is expensive. Freight carriers fight tooth and nail to get a slot, months in advance. And for the past eighty-odd days, there have been exactly zero spacecraft traveling outbound from Juliet to Proxima. This is unusual.”
Laramie felt her stomach turn a little. She thought of all the little beats of life she had left behind for a career in space. Her mom and dad arguing over how Constable Miller got elected. Four older brothers who had more bravery than sense. Her big sister living on a ranch, chasing a bunch of loud, ten-year-old boys who were even more foolhardy than their uncles. She hadn’t heard from any of them. But she was sure they were fine—probably just a busted transmitter, like Wyatt said.
Wyatt stopped pacing and crossed his arms. Everyone else was listening intently.
“On order, A-Squad will travel via quantum gate to Alpha A to conduct a zone reconnaissance of the planet Juliet and surrounding vicinity. We are to assess gate functionality, identify the location of any missing commercial spacecraft, and establish communication with Dagger Command. We are the main effort.”
Carlos, never a stickler for protocol, blurted out the question on everyone’s minds. “Just us, Lieutenant? One squad for a deep-space recon?”
“We’re it,” Wyatt confirmed. “Vigorous is staying on station in Proxima. For us, that means insertion via Javelin, with a deep-space booster for extended operations. We’ll attach to the freighter William Tell on the outbound leg to Lagrange Point Four. Their EM field will provide better protection from cosmic rays than the booster can. After that, we separate and get to work.”
Carlos dropped his head, despondent. A moment later he kicked Gavin’s boot. “Bring your deodorant, muchacho. You’ll need to police that body odor.”
“I don’t think I can stand you on a month-long BOREX,” the Texan replied. “You might not survive.”
“Ya basta, Carlos,” Laramie said. Knock it off.
“Yes, Staff Sergeant.”
Laramie stifled a sigh. Even their team knew a boring, repetitive exercise when they heard one. She tried to put it out of her mind.
Escape Velocity (The Quantum War Book 1) Page 3