9
Nineteen hours after the Camp Falcon brief, Rev, the platoon, and Delta Company were aboard the PUNS Alacrity, heading to Asteroid Belt 6-067 in unincorporated space. The Alacrity wasn’t even a combatant. Most of Task Force 46-3 was aboard a Heg cruiser and a Union destroyer, but the Alacrity was a support ship, without much in means of defense should she be jumped by a Centaur ship in null space.
There were two reasons for that. The first was that the Union wasn’t ready to reveal to the Hégémonie Liberté the existence of IBHU Marines. It may very well come out if the Centaur installation proved to be a fact, but until then, the IBHU project was to remain under wraps.
Second, however, had to do with an unexpected glitch. No one had considered that the Marine Corps EVA combat suits were not made to accommodate the IBHU. Sieben was developing a suit made specifically to take advantage of an IBHU’s capabilities, but that was lower on the priority list and was months from completion.
Four hours before boarding, an EVA was pulled from the embarkation pallets, and Daryll and others tried to fit Rev inside, but it just wasn’t going to work. After hurried deliberations, each of the three assault forces were cross-decked to whatever support ship with machine shop capabilities could be drummed up. The port support unit had to jump through their butts to reroute the supplies and equipment from the ground, but the New Hope contingent of TF 46-3 went to the Alacrity, McAnt and the contingent of TF 46-2 went to the PUNS Restore, and Randigold and the contingent to TF 46-1 stood by until either a new ship was rerouted or the support Marines could rig up a new EVA combat suit.
And now, Daryll, a Marine master sergeant armorer, and three Navy engineers were discussing how to rig an EVA so that Rev could use it. Daryll had also been a last-minute add, bypassing the paperwork necessary to allow for a non-military civilian to be taken into a combat zone and something against all sorts of regulations.
Rev wasn’t sure why he had to sit there being ignored. They had Pashu hanging from a hoist, and he certainly didn’t have any mechanical advice to give the team. Let them figure it out and get him when they needed to fit it.
He sighed a little too loudly, hoping they’d hear him.
Nothing.
Once more, a little louder.
They kept arguing over F-20s, whatever that was, and whether they could stand up long-term in a vacuum.
Punch knew he was bored, and he came to the rescue.
<Why are dogs afraid to go into space?>
Well, it’s not like I’m doing much else right now.
“OK, I’ll play. Why are they afraid?”
<Because of the vacuum.>
“Really, Punch? That’s the best you can do?”
<I do have access to a large library of jokes, but I prefer to create my own. And in this case, with Mr. Begay trying to seal your IBHU against a vacuum, I thought this one appropriate. And funny.>
Really? You’re creating your own jokes?
Punch was continually surprising him. Rev had long considered his battle buddy a tool of the psychologists, designed to make him a more efficient Marine. And he’d been OK with that because he could see how much Punch helped him. But it seemed that every so often, Punch revealed something else of himself that hinted at something more.
Unless that’s what he’s programmed to do.
It gave him a headache to try and figure things out, and Rev shook his head and sighed. This time, the master sergeant heard him and looked up.
“Sergeant, we’re not going to be getting anywhere for another couple of hours at least. Why don’t you go get some chow and get back here, say, zero-nine-hundred ship-time? And if we need you sooner, we’ll have you paged.”
Rev didn’t need to be told twice. “Roger, that!” He jumped up and took off before the top could change his mind. The Alacrity was a big ship, full of engineering and maintenance spaces, able to repair almost any piece of Marine equipment and quite a few Navy, but it didn’t have the huge numbers of crew that some ships had. Rev wandered around, trying to find his way to the mess decks, frustrated at being lost.
Since his augments, Rev had never been lost in the true sense of the word. He always knew where he was and where he wanted to go. But that was a combination of each world’s magnetic field and downloaded charts. The Alacrity didn’t have a planet-type magnetic field, the artificial gravity threw him off, and the ship’s diagram didn’t make sense to him. The mess decks were clearly marked, but he couldn’t figure out how to get there.
Finally, he ran into a sailor who showed him the way, and he entered the galley where the smell of food reminded him that the dazzleberry donuts back at Camp Falcon were the last solid food he’d eaten. The galley was packed with Marines, and more than a few were sitting on the deck along the bulkheads as they wolfed down their chow. Evidently, the Alacrity wasn’t used to hauling Marines. With over two hundred of them aboard, they dwarfed the ship’s crew.
Rev joined the back of the line, which ran the length of the galley. He scanned the eating Marines but didn’t see any of the Raiders. There was someone else he wanted to find, too, though.
“Hey,” he said, tapping the shoulder of a Marine sitting at one of the tables. “You know Sergeant Aroyatan?”
“You mean Cricket?” the other Marine, also a sergeant, said as he pointed to the far corner of the galley. “I think he’s over there.”
Rev couldn’t see his friend facing him, so he yelled out his name. A familiar face turned and broke out into a smile. Cricket elbowed the Marine next to him. His friend Dyce saw Rev and waved a greeting.
Rev motioned that he was going to get his chow and join them. It took a while, but he finally reached the head of the line. The ship’s Auto-Chef fabricators weren’t designed for this many mouths to feed, so the crew had broken out G-rats, which were a step up from D-rats, but not by much. Vats of food, each designed to feed fifty Marines, were opened, automatically being heated to the correct temperature. A petty officer was overseeing Captain Sauer and First Sergeant Limike, the Delta Company commander and first sergeant, and a gunny Rev didn’t know, as they dished up the food. Rev held out his tray while the first sergeant gave him a ladle full of rice, the captain covered that with a creamy, hamburger-like stew, and the gunny put a piece of bread on top. A vat of drink pouches was at the end, and he snagged one as he left the line.
He brought the dish up to his nose and sniffed. It didn’t smell bad, at least. That didn’t mean it would taste good, however. He had to step over the legs of Marines sitting against the bulkhead as he made his way back to Cricket’s table.
“I was wondering when you were gonna show up. I already saw Miko, and she said you were off doing whatever,” Cricket said as Rev reached him. “Hey, scoot over, Tundra,” he turned and said to the corporal sitting next to him. “Give a Raider some room.”
“I’m almost done. Give me a second.”
“Then you’re almost out of here, as in now.”
The corporal grumbled but picked up his tray and left.
“The new corporals these days,” Cricket said with mock dismay.
“Hey, good to see you, Rev,” Dyce said with the same look of respect mixed with awe that he’d shown since that first day they’d met back when Rev was a private. Which made Rev a little uncomfortable. Dyce was a sergeant, too, but senior to Rev.
“Good to see you, too,” Rev said as he sat down on the other side of Cricket. “Is this stuff any good?” he asked, poking at the meal.
“It’s calories. What else do you want?” Cricket said.
“A medium-rare ribeye, Halsberg Mash, and baby snow peas, now that you’re asking. But I guess I’ll have to settle for this stuff.” He took a tentative bite, but it was OK. Not the ribeye, but certainly decent enough.
“You guys settling in? Where do they have you?” he asked.
“We’re racking out in whatever spaces we can find. Our platoon is in a storage space for tank parts. What about you?”
“I haven’t had a chance to see yet,” Rev said. Which was true, but he’d already been told platoon was taking over a Navy berthing space—not that he was going to spring that on Cricket at the moment.
He took another bite of the stew, reached for a container of ketchup, and liberally dosed the meal. Cricket looked at him with amusement and watched Rev shovel another spoonful into his mouth.
Rev caught the look and said, “What? It makes it better.”
Cricket laughed and then leaned in closer, quietly asking, “So, what’s the scoop?”
Rev frowned and said, “The mission? Uh . . . we’re going after some tin-ass stuff. You know that, right?”
“Yeah, yeah, that mission. But I mean, like here, now. Like why did we get moved to this tub at the last minute?”
Rev knew exactly why, but he hadn’t been briefed on how much he could reveal. He stuffed another spoonful in his mouth as a shield against answering and shrugged.
“I heard,” Cricket said, lowering his voice even quieter, “that the reason has to do with you Raiders, and in specific, with you.”
“Rumor is just that, rumor.”
“Come on, Rev. I’m your buddy. We go way back.”
Rev turned to look at Dyce, who was obviously listening intently. Rev didn’t know how much a grunt’s hearing was augmented, but he had to assume that Dyce, and every other Marine on the table, could hear him.
“I’m sure they’ll tell us soon enough,” Rev said. Not a lie, but he still felt bad about not being open with Cricket.
And he could see that Cricket knew he wasn’t being forthcoming. His friend pursed his lips and seemed to accept that Rev wasn’t going to say any more.
“So, where was Miko when you saw her? Why isn’t the platoon here at chow?”
“Deathdealers first—”
“Deathdealers!” several of the other Marines at the table chanted.
“We’re eating first. Your platoon and the rest eat second,” Cricket said.
“So, I crashed your party?”
“Eh, we like to allow the lower forms of life to exult in our presence every once in a while.”
“Lower forms of life?” Rev asked. “Crap, me sitting with you here just raised Delta’s average IQ by ten points.”
* * *
Rev showed up at exactly zero-nine-hundred. Daryll and the others were sitting wherever they could find a seat, cramming stale-looking sandwiches into their mouths. From the looks of things, they hadn’t left the space since they boarded.
“We’re almost ready for you, Sergeant,” the top said, licking his fingers clean, then wiping them on his trousers. He stood up and motioned for Rev to follow him to where an EVA hung next to Pashu.
Rev took a look, then a double take. The thing had no left arm. He reached up to peer inside the shoulder opening. There was nothing there, and he could see inside the suit.
“Um . . . Top, I don’t mean to tell you how to do your job, but I’ll be going into space, and I can’t breathe in a vacuum.”
“You won’t be. We’ve got that covered. We’ll show you, but not here.”
He told the others to finish eating, and then they wrapped up Pashu until it was unrecognizable. They hooked it, along with the EVA, on a cargo skid that looked like a smaller version of the mules that moved around shuttles and fighters on a flight deck. Once they were all ready, one of the Navy techs programmed the destination, and the little skid started rolling. The group followed it through the wide, central corridor and into a large, almost cavernous space, then to the back corner where there was a pressure chamber. Rev watched as the others maneuvered the EVA and Pashu inside, then joined them.
“OK, let’s get you in the EVA,” the senior sailor, a Navy lieutenant commander, said.
There were two kinds of EVA suits in the Navy’s supply chain. The first was one that allowed for working outside a ship. Fluorescent orange and white, they were made to be visible, and they had only enough armor to protect against micro-dust. The second was the EVA combat suit, which looked like a cross between the Navy work suit and a Marine mech suit. The surface was chameleon fabric, which covered about the same amount of armor as a Raider’s PAL-5 had. It was bulkier than a PAL-5, though, with the air, water, and propulsion jets. Rev had been in mock-ups at boot camp, but he’d never been in a real one before, nor had he operated any other than in the sims.
“You need to take off that arm first,” the lieutenant commander said.
Rev reached over, twisted his social arm, and removed it, then handed it to Daryll. He looked at the suit for a moment, wondering if being one-armed would make it difficult. He shouldn’t have worried. The combat EVA was surprisingly easy to don. The front was split open, and Rev essentially backed into it, first stepping into each leg, then wiggling his butt and back into place as active padding conformed to his body, hugging him and keeping him in place. He ran this right arm into the sleeve, then waited as one of the other sailors closed up the front.
“Now for that other arm,” the lieutenant commander said.
“We’re going to have to manhandle it on him,” Daryll said. “It’s heavier than it looks.”
The top and two of the sailors lifted Pashu and struggled to hold it in place until Daryll could make the connections. Once that was done, Rev took over supporting it, to the relief of the other three.
“And now, about that little vacuum thing?” Rev asked.
“We’ve got it.” One of the Navy techs took a roll of silvery tape out of his bag and stepped up to Rev.
“Wait. You’ve got to be kidding me. Duck tape? You’re sending me into space with duck tape?”
“That’s duct tape, not duck, as in quack-quack, tape, and this isn’t your hardware-store duct tape,” the sailor said. “We use this for repairs in space. Don’t worry.”
“Is that true?”
<It would seem so. There are a multitude of uses listed in their manuals.>
“And you trust that with your life?”
<The question is whether I trust it with your life. A little vacuum won’t kill me, after all.>
“You know what I mean. But OK, should I trust it?”
<As much as you can trust anything.>
Rev lifted Pashu and rotated the shoulder, which made the sailor jump back. “Just making sure everything’s tucked in place.”
The sailor stepped back up and started wrapping the duct tape around Rev’s shoulder, down the little bit of EVA suit extending past that, and halfway down Pashu’s upper section. He wasn’t stingy with the tape, putting layer over layer.
“I think that will do,” he finally said as he stepped back to admire his work.
“Then, let’s test it,” the top said. “See if this bad boy works.”
The five stepped out of the chamber and sealed the door. Their faces crowded the windows.
“We’re going to remove the air in stages. We should be able to tell if there’s a leak, but if you hear any air escaping, or if breathing becomes difficult, then let us know,” one of the sailors said through the speaker.
If I can’t breathe, how am I going to be able to tell you that?
But he just gave a thumbs-up with his right hand.
“For the moment, don’t move. Just stand there. Beginning depressurization now,” the sailor said. Rev could see her reach for something just out of his sight, and a moment later, the display number started falling.
Rev immediately started holding his breath, then laughed as he realized he was overreacting, just beating the sailor’s, “Breathe normally, Sergeant.”
It didn’t take long. Within twenty seconds, the display read a complete vacuum. And he was still breathing.
The sailor looked at the lieutenant commander, who nodded. “We want you to raise your . . . arm, the big one. Your left. Raise it to ninety degrees.”
Rev lifted Pashu . . . and suddenly, alarms went off, and Rev could hear air escaping. He snapped his arm back down as his heart jumped to his throat, and he held his breath again. O2 rushed back into the chamber.
The door opened, and Daryll and the male petty officer came inside. The petty officer was holding what looked like a spray can.
“Lift your arm again,” Daryll said with a calm voice. He leaned in to check the tape.
“Do you know where it’s leaking?” Rev asked.
“They put telltales in your suit. We can track them, and they leave blue marks as they escape.”
Telltales? I’m breathing them in?
“Check on the medical effects of these telltales.”
<Reported as harmless.>
“There,” Daryll said, pointing to a spot on the backside of Rev’s shoulder.
The sailor sprayed the spot as if he was spraying disinfectant on a puppy’s accident. It didn’t seem to be very high-tech. Rev couldn’t see the spot, and with the EVA on, he couldn’t reach around to feel it. But the sailor seemed satisfied, and the two left the chamber for another test.
It took four more tests before the seal was secure. Rev went through every possible motion until there was a leak, and that would be plugged up. But at last, everyone was satisfied. Everyone except Rev, that was. He was the one who was going to be going into combat with a couple of BC’s worth of duct tape and ship goo to keep the vacuum out and the air in. It was just too slipshod for his comfort level.
But the team was in a celebratory mood as they cut Rev free and removed Pashu. “Let’s see those assholes on the Restore do any better,” the lieutenant commander crowed while giving the others high fives.
And Rev realized that for them, this was a victory. It didn’t have to do with killing Centaurs. It didn’t have to do with keeping subordinates alive, but rather tackling a mechanical problem and coming up with a solution.
Rev shook his head, ignored by them. No matter how hard he might try, he knew he was never going to understand the engineering mind.