by Smith, Glenn
“Will do, sir.”
“When do you leave for Cirra?”
She started to answer, but before the words could escape from her mouth, her comm-panel chirped. “Commander Royer?” it called.
She touched the comm-link on her collar. “Royer here.”
“This is Senior Crewman Pratt in Command-and-Control, ma’am. Admiral Hansen isn’t in his office. Is he there with you?”
“Yes, he’s right here. Go ahead. He can hear you.”
“Oh, uh...all right,” the crewman responded, sounding hesitant to do so for some reason. “Admiral Hansen, sir, we just received a priority message for you from the Provost Marshal’s office on Europa.”
Hansen and Royer exchanged a look.
“O’Donnell,” Hansen mumbled, rolling his eyes. “I’ll bet you a month’s pay it’s about O’Donnell.” Then, speaking loud enough for Royer’s comm-link to pick him up, he asked, “What’s the message?”
“Uh, just a reminder first, Admiral. We’re on an unsecure channel.”
“That’s all right, Crewman. If the message were classified the Provost Marshal would’ve sent it encrypted and directly to me. Just give me the bottom line.”
“The bottom line, yes, sir.” A short pause, then, “At zero eight twenty-two hours today, Europan Colony Time, while enroute to Mandela Station to face court-martial proceedings, Crewman First Class Stefani O’Donnell commandeered a lifeboat and escaped from Military Police custody and control.”
“Are you kidding me?” Hansen roared.
“No, sir! That’s exactly what the message says!”
“Forward it to my office. Hansen out.”
Royer tapped her comm-link, closing the channel.
“Son of a... How the hell did she evade a police transport in a lifeboat? Can’t the M-P’s keep one little girl under lock and key, for God sake?”
“That little girl has a reputation for being a very resourceful individual, Admiral,” Royer reminded him. “And working Linguistics and Communications for us these past few years, she’s no doubt become pretty familiar with a lot of our methodology.”
“Maybe we should send her to the academy,” Hansen commented sarcastically.
“What? You mean as an instructor?”
Hansen stared at her for a moment, then snickered and grinned—her goal when she said it, of course—and his momentarily foul mood brightened again. Not that it had been all that bright to begin with. “At least she can’t get too far in a lifeboat,” he stated, as much to reassure himself as to point it out to Royer. “So, where were we?”
“You asked me when I was leaving for Cirra, sir. Early tomorrow morning.”
“All right, Commander. Enjoy your trip, as much as possible.” He turned and headed for the door. “Just try not to be gone too long.”
“Trust me, Admiral, I’ll be back as soon as I possibly can be.”
Just as he reached the door, he turned back. “Oh, and one more thing.”
“Yes, sir?”
“After the meeting this morning, the president asked me if I really thought Sergeant Graves was the right person for the job. When I told her that I did, she asked me to try my very best to recruit him.”
“I understand, sir.”
“I want him for this mission, Commander. Lean on him a little if you have to. Make this trip of yours worthwhile.”
Royer gazed at him for a moment. Had he just given her card-blanche to do whatever was necessary to bring Graves aboard? If so, then she would, without hesitation. If not, better that she assume he had anyway. She’d have more room to maneuver that way. “You can count on it, sir,” she assured him.
Hansen nodded once, and then left her alone.
Let Günter go, the admiral had told her. Like hell. He was her big brother. He’d been her protector in childhood and her moral support in adolescence. She would not abandon him...ever. A long time ago she’d promised herself that she would bring him home, no matter how long it took, and the Timeshift mission appeared to be the perfect opportunity to do just that.
Chapter 17
Planet Cirra, The Next Day
Earth Standard Date: Saturday, 28 August 2190
The painful throbbing behind Dylan’s eyes seemed to be worsening by the minute. It felt as though a pair of ice-picks had been jabbed through his temples to hold his eyeballs firmly in place while the herd of stampeding elephants inside his skull tried with each pounding heartbeat to push them from their sockets. It hurt so much that he was beginning to think he might actually get sick. He’d tried Marissa’s relaxation technique at least a half dozen times in the six or seven hours since they’d broken camp and started back toward civilization, and was trying it yet again, but it still didn’t seem to be working.
Of course, the way that God-forsaken sardine can of an armored personnel carrier was bouncing him around on its inadequately cushioned bench seat as it tore down the rocky, ditch-ridden dirt road at break-neck speeds wasn’t helping any, either. He’d already slammed the back of his head against the hard plastisteel bulkhead behind him at least ten times, and the god-awful noise was enough to drive a man insane!
Not that the APC itself was all that noisy. On the contrary, as heavily-armored tactical vehicles went it was actually fairly quiet. At least from the inside. It was well insulated, both to protect the Marines inside from the elements and to mask their heat and sound signatures from enemy scanners. But the ungodly road noise that the vehicle’s four squealing plastisteel tracks created as they plowed through deep ruts of hard-packed dirt and rolled over thousands of loose, sedimentary conglomerates was almost deafening. Those rock clusters had an annoying tendency to explode like grenades under the vehicle’s incredible weight and spatter the resultant shrapnel-like fragments against the underside of the deck plate.
Road noise. Hah! That implied the presence of an actual road, and this just didn’t qualify. This was nothing more than a dried up old riverbed that happened to snake steadily downward through the deep mountain draw in the general direction of Solfleet’s Grainger Army-Aerospace Base, winding its way through a narrow clearing in the dense evergreen forest. Correction—the dense everblue forest. Blue trees. They were beautiful to be sure, but after growing up on Earth would he ever really get used to that?
Left behind by fresh mountain waters that had carved the 580-kilometer long draw into the eastern slopes over thousands of years before they dried up, the old riverbed had reportedly remained unspoiled until the Veshtonn invasion of ‘68, when the occupying alien forces had apparently matter-sprayed it from low orbit in an attempt to render it impassable to ground vehicles. So, even after four years of fairly steady use as a tactical deployment route by Solfleet’s ground forces, it still didn’t make for much of a thoroughfare. But the dual-drive M450-A3 quarter/quadtrack APC’s with their accordion bodies, heavy-duty shock-suspension assemblies, full meter of ground clearance, and front-mounted obstacle deflectors, hefty as they were, could make a road out of just about anything if they had to, as long as the ground wasn’t too soft. Unfortunately, that made for some very rough rides, despite those very same heavy-duty shock-suspension assemblies.
When? When would those rear echelon brainiacs at R&D ever figure out how to build an armored personnel carrier that could float above the ground, nice and smooth, like a comfy little street skimmer? When? Probably never.
He felt a light tap on his left shoulder. “Go away. I’m sleeping,” he said, just loud enough to be heard over the clamor. Talking made his head hurt even worse.
“I have something for you, Sarge,” someone said.
He opened his eyes and raised his heavy head, and became suddenly aware of the fact that the over-taxed ventilation system was losing its battle against the dank, musky odor of the dozen sweaty, dirt-caked Marines who filled the cramped troop compartment. Because there were no open air slots or other compromises to the armor’s integrity, ventilation was generally poor to begin with, dependent solely on twin circula
tors that sucked air in through heavy filters from the outside, provided that air didn’t contain dangerous levels of any toxic substances. It didn’t take very many people to heat things up inside, so an entire squad of hot, sweaty Marines tended to put quite a strain on the system. Even the air in the base gym’s locker room had rarely ever been so offensive.
The compartment was poorly illuminated as well, lit by just a single adhesive cold-light strip that ran down the center of the low ceiling. But the ghostly blue-green glow it gave off was sufficient enough that he could see one of the squad’s four females standing in the center aisle just to his left, between the two facing rows of seated Marines, several of whom had taken off their camouflage tunics and black tee shirts in what was probably a futile attempt to find a little bit of relief from the sweltering heat. She was fairly tall, had shed her tunic and knotted her tee shirt up around her midriff, and was swaying from side to side as if dancing in time to the APC’s motion, holding tightly onto the overhead safety bar with one hand and reaching out to him with the other. She was still wearing her black Ranger beret—why, he couldn’t even guess—but a long lock of her jet black hair had fallen loose on one side and was swinging back and forth across her cheek, so he could tell easily enough who she was. Corporal Marissa Ortiz, whom some would argue held the destinction of being the sexiest, most beautiful woman in her entire branch of the service. Or, to put it into typical ‘Marinespeak’, the hottest damn piece of ass in the whole friggin’ Marine Corps.
“Here, Sarge. Take this,” she said.
He focused on the hand in front of him. “What is it?”
“Liferin.”
He raised his hand and let her drop the pill into it. “Thank you, Corporal,” he said as he watched the little white tablet already beginning to dissolve in his sweaty palm. “You’re a life saver. My head is really killing me.”
“You should have asked me for one a lot sooner.”
With a little more effort than it usually required, Dylan filled his hot, pasty mouth with warm saliva and tossed the pill to the back of his throat and swallowed. Then he said, “I thought you didn’t carry these things anymore.”
“Never hurts to have a backup plan.”
“Good point.”
“Anyway, that’ll fix you right up.”
“I hope so.”
“Did you at least try the discipline?”
Dylan nodded...slightly. “Only about half a dozen times since we left. It worked a little bit, but this one’s a major skullquake.”
“Aw come on, Sarge. You oughtta know by now size doesn’t matter,” she said, shaking her head.
Dylan eyed her suspiciously as several of the others broke into laughter. He couldn’t be sure if she’d intended the pun or not, though she most likely had—it was hard to tell with her sometimes—but jokes like that were always good for a laugh when the leader of the group was made the butt of them, and the squad was so over-tired and giddy right now that they would laugh at just about anything...with one exception.
Lance Corporal Frieburger. He was too preoccupied to laugh, still holding his helmet upside-down between his knees and trying his damnedest not to lose his last meal into it. Poor kid had suffered from motion sickness his entire life. Corporal Daniel ‘Doc’ Leskowski, their primary corpsman, had twice given him something for his upset stomach just since wake-up and probably didn’t want to risk another dose so soon.
Ortiz raised her free hand to stop whatever comeback she might have thought Dylan was preparing to throw at her and said, “Just keep working on it whenever you have a chance, Sarge. You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”
“I hope so,” he said. “I don’t like taking pills.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
As she turned away and started back toward her seat, the APC lurched hard to the left and then dropped violently too far back to the right in one swift motion. She lost her grip on the safety bar and fell backwards into Private LeClerc’s lap, smashing him in the face with the back of her head as the entire compartment echoed with the rapid-fire bang-bang-bang of hundreds of attacking rock fragments. A chorus of colorful expletives shouted in the background and an arrangement of tumbling weapons and gear crashing to the deck accompanied the thunderous percussion symphony of stone while LeClerc’s profanity-filled pronouncements of pain provided the lead vocals.
But LeClerc quickly shook off the sudden, painful blow to his face and wasted no time in grabbing hold of Ortiz’s slender waist with both hands. Just to help her up, of course...which he didn’t rush to do.
As everyone began to settle down again, the green, roughly coin-sized indicator light on the intercom panel to Dylan’s right winked on. “Sorry about that, back there,” the driver’s voice said. “Is everyone all right?”
“We’re fine,” Dylan answered. “But why don’t you slow this thing the hell down, Lance Corporal!”
“Hey, Squad Sergeant, sir! It’s dark as all fucking hell outside and we’re only running on blackout markers! If I lose sight of the A-P-C. in front of us...”
“Then comm ahead and tell them to slow the hell down, before you kill somebody!”
The intercom light winked off.
“I enjoyed that very much, Corporal. Thank you,” LeClerc shouted with a mischievous grin, grabbing hold his crotch as the woman escaped his grasp and bounced back to her feet.
“I guess it’s a good thing for you that size really doesn’t matter, hey, Jean-Pierre?” Lance Corporal Margaret Sweeney jibed, never hesitant to jump right in and help out a fellow female Marine. The laughter that had so abruptly stopped when the APC started tossing them around returned just as quickly.
“Yeah, fuck you, too, Maggie!” LeClerc shouted angrily.
“Hey!” Dylan hollered, causing that small burning sun in the middle of his brain to go nova. “Stow the attitude right now, LeClerc!”
He glanced over at Sweeney and wasn’t at all surprised to find that she’d joined those who had stripped down to their waists. She’d folded her tee shirt into a roughly square pad, had apparently soaked it with water from her canteen, and was using it to give herself a sort of sponge bath, making no effort at all to hide her bare breasts from anyone’s view. He almost told her to put her shirt back on, but stopped himself. This wasn’t one of those old-fashioned thinking military services that still employed a publicly popular but counterproductive...not to mention inefficient...‘modify-for-training-environment’ regulation. This was the Solfleet Marine Corps, and Solfleet Marines in a field training environment did everything exactly the way they would in a real combat situation, regardless of gender. They fought together, bathed in lakes, ponds, or puddles together, decontaminated after a chemical attack together, and even slept together if and when circumstances so dictated. Simply put, they weren’t men and women when they were in the field. They were Marines. Nothing more and nothing less.
On the other hand, for the good of the unit, certain types of behavior on the part of certain individuals probably shouldn’t have been allowed, at least in Dylan’s opinion. It was common knowledge within the squad, for example, that the two of them—Sweeney and LeClerc—had recently enjoyed a passionate weekend fling together. In fact, over the last eight months since she arrived, Sweeney had spent such weekends with several of the other men and at least one of the women as well. Officially, her sordid activities, unlike her current state of partial undress, were in violation of Solfleet regulations. But because enforcement of such regulations brought into question a person’s own morals and upbringing, it was one of those kinds of violations that no one ever really talked about and the leadership usually tended to ignore, as long as the offending parties committed the violation off base and the unit’s health and morale weren’t adversely affected.
Which, to a small extent, it unfortunately had been. As far as Dylan knew, LeClerc had been the first of Sweeney’s partners to have any problem with ending their brief tryst. Theirs was the first conflict of that kind that h
e’d been forced to get involved in, at least. He’d had Ortiz talk to Sweeney about putting a lid on her ‘recreational activities’ for a while, at least those that involved her squad mates, while he’d talked to LeClerc. LeClerc had told him that he’d believed their rendezvous to be the beginning of something more permanent. But she’d rejected that idea, rather abruptly if he was to be believed, and he’d had a hard time dealing with that.
From the sound of it, it was time to have another talk with LeClerc.
God his head hurt.
“Fuck you, too, Maggie?” Ortiz questioned, still standing in front of LeClerc and looking down at him. “What do you mean, ‘you too’, Jean-Pierre? I sure as hell didn’t feel anything.”
The laughter grew even louder.
LeClerc gazed up at her with that same mischievous grin. “Maybe you didn’t, Corporal, but me and my perma-woody sure did.”
“Oh, is that what that was?”
“Yes, ma’am!” he answered, smiling proudly from ear to ear. “I guess you felt something after all, huh?”
“Yeah, come to think of it, I did! Whew! God, what a relief! I thought I sat on one of Greenburg’s little killer darts!”
The laughter graduated into a roar.
“Oh yeah? Well...” He was obviously trying, but it looked like he wasn’t going to come up with a comeback for that one anytime soon.
“Are you bleeding, Jean-Pierre?” Sweeney asked.
LeClerc glanced across the aisle at her, then touched a hand to his face and brought it away bloodied. “Oh, shit!” he cried. “She broke my fuckin’ nose! Sarge, Corporal Ortiz broke my fuckin’ nose!”
Dylan looked over at him again. Sure enough, a dark smudge of thick, oozing fluid nearly covered the lower half of his face and was dripping onto the deck. “Doc!”
“I got it, Sarge,” Leskowski answered as he pressed his harness release and grabbed up his med kit. Ortiz moved out of his way and returned to her seat, while Dylan, his anger renewed, nearly punched the back of his fist through the intercom panel. “Driver!” he barked. “Slow this fucking tin can down before I come up there and kick your mother-loving ass!” He didn’t particularly enjoy talking like the stereotypical ground-pounder, but sometimes a sergeant just had to explain things in such a way as to make his point unmistakably clear.