11
“I don’t like this,” Randigold said as Daryll attached Cruella, her IBHU.
“You’ve got the sims training,” Rev said. “You’ll do fine.
He wasn’t really looking forward to it, either, but he had to put up a good front for the lance corporal.
At least he’d had some experience with one training session as a recruit, two as a Raider, and then the mission at the asteroid. This was going to be Randigold’s first mission in a micro-G environment. All the sims in the world couldn’t prepare someone for that moment when they left the safe confines of their ship.
“I’ll kick ass,” she replied. “But that doesn’t mean I have to like it. It isn’t natural, not by a long shot.”
“No, you don’t have to like it, true. Right, Sergeant S?”
Sergeant Tesler Sign of Respect, Perseus Union Marine Corps, just nodded. The sergeant was a native of Rebirth, the smallest of the Union’s charter members. But that made him a regular Marine, not a provincial. He was a member of Third Platoon, so not in Rev’s chain of command, but as the senior IBHU Marines in the company, Rev had tried to get to know him better—without much luck so far. It wasn’t that the sergeant had shown any of the lack of respect provincials had grown to expect from the charter citizens. It was just that he was about the quietest, most private person Rev had ever encountered. Average height, average weight, average looks, he was the kind of person who could be standing right in front of you and never be noticed.
Sign of Respect didn’t seem, at first blush, to be Marine material, but he’d made it through boot camp and earned the title, eventually making it to sergeant. Also, Rev didn’t think the Marines would have selected him for the IBHU program unless he’d proven himself in battle.
“OK, you’re done, Ether. Rev, you’re next,” Daryll said.
“Why don’t we do this in one of the domes? They can turn off the gravity, and then, if something happens, we at least aren’t sucking vacuum.”
Rev would be lying if he said the thought hadn’t crossed his mind. Field training on Enceladus came at a premium since it was a moon without a real atmosphere. The Guard made heavy use of simulators, but for actual, on-planet training, there were three large domed areas. Normally, the diamagnetic fields created varying degrees of pseudo gravity, but the fields could be left off to create a microgravity environment or reversed to counteract the moon’s tiny gravitational force to create a null-G environment.
“If there’s no danger, then it really isn’t realistic, now, right?” Rev asked.
“The more you sweat in training, the less you bleed in combat,” Sergeant Sign of Respect said.
Rev looked at the sergeant in surprise. That had to be the most Rev had heard the NCO volunteer to say. “Yeah, what Sergeant S said.”
“But you’re implying that in order to get realistic combat training, you have to have live rounds being fired at you,” Randigold said. “I don’t need to have you shoot real rounds at me for me to know I don’t want to get hit.”
“She’s got a good point, Tesler,” Daryll said while looking to see if the sergeant would respond.
More in line with his character, Sign of Respect didn’t respond.
“Where do I get one of those harness things?” Randigold asked.
The “harness things” were small propulsion packs that would counteract the moon’s tiny gravitational pull so they could simulate weightlessness. A tiny AI would monitor the trooper’s attitude toward the ground, then fire ground-facing mini-pulses to keep the trooper suspended above it.
Diamagnetic fields used a lot of power and were expensive to install, so most of the surface training ranges were in their natural state. The suspension harnesses were a much cheaper option.
“At the range. Just put them on and then forget they are even there,” Daryll said. “And if you can quit with your never-ending questions, Ether, let me get the staff sergeant here in his Oscar so you can get the hell out of here and leave me alone.”
“I’m beginning to think you don’t love me, Daryll.”
“I love you madly, but that doesn’t mean you’re not a royal pain in the ass.”
Sign of Respect actually cracked half a smile at the repartee between the two.
Watch out, Sergeant S, or people will think you’re actually human.
“Besides, I’ve still got six more Oscars to modify before all of you are kitted out,” Daryll said. “So, Rev, can we?”
Rev stepped up to the platform as Daryll brought up his Oscar. As with the Pashu, Rev’s Oscar had been the first EVA suit modified to handle an IBHU. He just hoped that unlike with Pashu, there would be no teething pains with his vacuum combat suit, because in just under an hour, the three of them would be boarding a surface hopper for an hour ride to the training range.
An hour was a long way from safety if his Oscar decided to spring a leak.
* * *
“It’s a series of movements, twisting and then pulling yourself after,” the Hégémonie sailor said. “Think of how a cat always lands on its feet. It never changes the direction of its fall, but it can change its orientation so that it lands on its feet. And like that cat, if you are in zero-G, you can’t change your angular momentum, but you can change your body’s orientation. And that’s what we’re going to be working on this morning.”
“That’s why we have thrusters,” Sergeant Refever Lines said on the First Squad net.
“Shut up and listen, Lines,” Sergeant First Class Gamay said.
Rev and the rest of First Platoon were standing on the bleachers, the gecko pads on the bottoms of their boots keeping them in place. This was their first class for their two-day training period. Some of the others bitched that they didn’t need null and microgravity training, but Rev was glad they were having it. Despite the mission on the asteroid, Rev wasn’t confident in his abilities in such an environment, so the more experience he could put under his belt, the better.
The instructor was floating two meters above the ground—floating wasn’t the right word. Her suspension harness was constantly adjusting with tiny impulses so that her acceleration exactly matched Enceladus’ 0.1 m/s2 gravity.
She held her arms in close to her chest, twisted her body, then extended her arms. With a hard swing to the left, her body twisted to the right. She brought her arms in again and repeated the process, turning her body even more. A few more times and she had rotated in a 360 and was facing the platoon again.
The Heg sailor then ran her hands close to her body until the arms were extended on her thighs, palms facing front. She rotated her arms at the shoulder, keeping the arms extended, sweeping them up past her head. This caused her to tumble forward as if doing a somersault. Several more times, and she had completed an entire forward roll.
“These are just two of the standard maneuvers. We’ve got eighteen official maneuvers, but you’ll find that with practice, you can adjust these to fit your own needs.”
And how does Pashu fit into all of this? I can’t really do the same thing with her as someone with two organic arms.
“It’s all a matter of proprioception and knowing what to do to change your orientation. But you’ve grown up all your life with gravity, so now you need to train your proprioceptive sense so that you know exactly where you are in weightlessness and what you have to do.”
“Proprioception?”
<Knowing the body’s ability to sense its location, movements, and actions. It is sometimes called the sixth sense.>
“What? Put that so I can understand it.”
<You don’t have to see your hand to reach for something. You know where it is and how to extend it.>
When Punch put it that way, it made sense, and he began to understand what he needed to do to maneuver in weightlessness.
“So, now, if you can split into squads,” the sailor said. “First, in a school circle to my left. Second, here in the middle, and Third to my right. Let’s do it.”
Rev turned off the geckos on the soles of his boots and cautiously stepped down off of the bleachers. It was more like floating down. Enceladus might have only microgravity, but it was still gravity, and it took him back to the ground—eventually. Kick off too hard, and he’d be floating too long, an object of ridicule by those more experienced. A couple of his squadmates—Gingham and Akkeke, for example—moved quickly to their spot, just skimming above the surface. Others, like Lines, were being as cautious as Rev was.
This would be so much easier with the Oscars’ thrusters, but, of course, they were forbidden for the exercise. The instructor had reminded them that the maneuvers they’d practice today were the same ones they could use to orient themselves while using their thrusters. Rev wasn’t sure why he’d resort to them if he was under power, but regardless, he didn’t understand why they couldn’t use them now, if only to get to the right spot.
Eventually, they were in their correct positions in a large circle around two instructors. “First Squad, Channel Twenty-two,” one of them said.
Rev switched over.
“Everybody here? Give me a thumbs-up.”
Rev was careful not to raise his arm but just popped up a thumb. Lines must have forgotten the demo they’d just received. He raised up his entire arm, and that started him in a slow tumble. The instructors waited until he managed to get his feet under him and stood straight again.
“First Squad, I am Sergeant Horenz, and with me is Corporal Cathcart.” Neither one moved, so Rev didn’t know which one was which. “This is what we’re going to do now. On my command, you are to make a tiny—I repeat, tiny—jump until you are a meter or two above the surface. At that moment, activate your suspension harnesses. Do it now.”
Rev gave the tiniest flex of his toes that he could . . . and barely left the surface. He tried again, this time harder. He still didn’t make it much more than half a meter.
Well, she said tiny.
Once more, he kicked off, this time rising about a meter. Just as he started to fall back, he activated his suspension harness. There was a very slight feeling as if he was being held up by a mesh net of some kind, but for the most part, it did feel as if he was weightless.
“Orient on me,” Sergeant Horenz ordered the squad.
When Rev had jumped, he’d kicked off-kilter, probably because of Pashu’s mass, which even at the moon’s minuscule gravity, was significant enough to be noticed. He tried to swing back like the Heg sailor had done, but his IBHU wasn’t cooperating. In the end, he just used his right arm.
He wasn’t the only one. At least half of the squad had to adjust their positions. Lines was the last to be in place.
“So, listen up. We’ll be going over ten different maneuvers this morning. The sooner you nail them, the sooner we can move on. The ten we will be doing are enough for basic orientation in space. They are not new. Each of these is basically unchanged since the early days of space exploration. To be exact, they are described in a US Air Force bioastronautics report from 1962, so this is old-school. But as they’ve lasted this long, they must be doing the trick.
“First on deck, the Cat Reflex. Corporal Cathcart will demonstrate.”
The instructor to Rev’s right twisted their body to their right, raised their arms out to the horizontal, then snapped them down while twisting to the left. It was something like what the Heg sailor had done, and it served the same purpose. The instructor rotated about thirty or forty degrees.
“Now, I want all of you to keep at it until Corporal Cathcart or I tell you to stop.”
Rev attempted to replicate the motion. But when he lifted his arms, his body rotated slightly to the left. Then when he snapped them down, his body rotated to the right, bringing him almost back to where he started. He tried several more times, gaining a little ground, but not much.
He stopped in frustration, looking for one of the two instructors. The corporal was tapping Akkeke on the shoulder, telling him to stop. Rev hadn’t gotten to know the Alliance soldier very well yet, but it was obvious that this wasn’t his first rodeo.
At least, I hope that is it. What if this is his first real training in null G ops, and I’m just the oaf who can’t get it done? He had a flashback of trying to teach Pierson infantry basics, and the guy just not getting them. Oh, good god, what if I’m the squad’s Pierson?
He looked across the training area to Second Squad and Kvat. At least he looked to be having problems as well. It wasn’t really schadenfreude. He didn’t take pleasure just because it was the MDS karnan, but if anyone was going to have problems, Rev would rather have it be him.
The corporal moved over to Rev. Using the laser comms for a direct person-to-person conversation, he said, “Let me see you try it, Staff Sergeant.”
Rev did his best, but at most, he gained about ten degrees of rotation. The instructor reached out and grabbed Pashu. Rev had to hold back the urge to snap his IBHU out of the corporal’s grip.
“How flexible is the elbow joint? Show me.”
Rev moved his arm up and down, all the time the corporal hanging on.
“OK, here’s what I want you to do. Bring the arm up along the front of your body, then extend it at shoulder level. I’m going to try to guide it. Ready?”
Rev nodded, then attempted to do as he was told. He could feel the corporal exert force, which meant he was using his thrusters.
“OK, you can stop, Staff Sergeant. We were told this might be a problem.”
“You were told I’d be a problem?” Rev asked, his warrior bristling.
“Yes. You IBHU Marines. You just don’t have the flexibility with your weapons. Not like a human arm. So, it looks like we’re gonna have to figure out what works best for you. Between you and me, all this ‘going back to 1962’ is just trying to show we’re all from old Earth, and the forms they teach are like some of the sacrosanct stylized martial arts training. What really matters is if you can function in Zero G. And I know you’re all thinking it’s not like you’re going to be without your thrusters.”
“Then why are we doing this?” Rev asked, surprised at the corporal’s frankness.
“You can use your thrusters, but if some pirate pops out of a compartment behind you, do you want to wait for the thrusters to bring you around so you can fire? Or do you want to know how to move your body so that you can bring that IBHU to bear?”
The corporal let go of Rev’s arm, and with a move that would make a circus acrobat proud, twisted his body until he was head down, but his arm was pointing back across to the other side of the circle. He held that position for a moment, then, with a paucity of motion, somehow twisted back so that he was facing Rev again.
Rev wished that Punch could record what he was seeing. He’d love to be able to analyze what the corporal had just done. And the instructor had made his point. None of the training and experience he had gained to fight Centaurs carried through to fighting in space. Thrusters or not, being able to orient himself quickly, or more to the point, orient Pashu quickly, could be the difference between life and death.
“You aren’t gonna have too many problems with some of the maneuvers, like the lasso, but others, well, we’ll just have to develop what works for you. So, for now, go ahead and stop the Cat Reflex. We may have to run your movement capabilities through one of the AIs to find some good maneuvers that you can use. Can’t let the pit bulls show up the Marines, you know.”
“Excuse me?”
“The pit bulls, Staff Sergeant. You know, the karnans.”
“Yes, I know what a pit bull is. But show up the Marines?”
“Ah, shit, Staff Sergeant. I get so used to not relying on telling people our services. I’m a Union Marine, too. Thirty-ninth Marines. And I’m proud as hell of you guys. You IBHU Marines.”
Which explained the not letting the pit bull show up the Marines statement. The corporal might be regular Marines and Rev a provincial, but interservice rivalry would make the corporal try to make sure Rev and the other IBHU Marines outdo the MDS karnans.
Rev had more than enough of the competitive edge himself, but after the corporal’s little demonstration, being a better fighter outweighed whether he was better than a karnan or not. But he was willing to use the corporal’s loyalty to the Union if that would benefit him as a null G warrior.
“So, if I want extra instruction, like the thing you mentioned with the AIs, you’re willing to help?”
“Fuck yeah! Sorry, I mean, yes, Staff Sergeant. I’d be happy to. Any time.”
“How about this evening? After we bivvy?”
“Uh, sure. Happy to,” the corporal said, not sounding quite as enthusiastic.
Rev didn’t know if the instructor staff would be in the field with them, and if not, he was keeping the corporal from going back in the rear. But the other Marine had offered, and from the way he moved about so easily, he obviously knew his stuff. Rev would be foolish to turn down the opportunity.
* * *
After only one day, Rev felt far more comfortable in Null G, even simulated Null G, than he had after a week on the asteroid. Corporal Cathcart had stayed in the field. While the rest of the platoon was inside their small bivvy-capsules, able to get out of their Oscars to sleep, Rev and the corporal had spent another four hours experimenting with maneuvers that took into account, even complimented, Pashu. The single-arm lasso, for example, worked much better when using his IBHU than his organic arm.
Rev didn’t know how much good that would do him. The lasso consisted of raising one arm, then spinning the hand in a continuous circle. It spun Rev about quickly, but as Pashu was his weapon, using her would mean he was pointing the cannon and 20mm straight up, not at the ready. But it was good to know she could be used to help his maneuver, and the corporal had promised to set up extra training, not only for Rev, but for Randigold and Sign of Respect.
Second Platoon was starting their orientation training today, so Cathcart said he’d focus on Randigold to build upon what he’d learned with Rev.
Rev had asked how the corporal had gotten good enough so as to be assigned to the Home Guard as an instructor where most of the other Null G were Hégémonie or Mezame Concordate. The Union Marines had fought the Centaurs only on the ground, and while each infantry battalion had an anti-piracy company, at least on paper, the reality was that their null-G training was intermittent at best, non-existent at worst.
Unbeknownst to Rev, however, the regular Marines had kept three battalions on active Null G status throughout the course of the war, never engaging them in combat ops against the Centaurs. The war had been the services’ main effort, but as the assistant vice-counsel had said, there were some among humanity who took the situation and exploited it. Greed had overcome common decency, and piracy had actually increased during the course of the war. So, those three battalions had come through the war with relatively few casualties and lots more experience fighting in space.
Rev could tell Cathcart resented not having been in the main fight, but he thought that from here on out, those three battalions would be vital in training the Marines back up into what had been one of their main missions before the Centaurs came a’calling.
And now, after yesterday’s training and the extra instruction with the corporal, Rev felt far more comfortable and was confident in what he had to do. He might not be as good as most of the more experienced troopers, but he was light-years above where he was two days ago, and he thought he wouldn’t bring shame upon the Marines during the ship takedown exercise.
In fact, he was more than a little excited to start the mission. Flying from the Alacrity to the asteroid had merely been a means to get from Point A to Point B, and he’d spent part of that wondering if the duct tape sealing his EVA suit closed would hold. This time, it would be a tactical movement to contact. But as there wasn’t much cover in the emptiness of space, the advance would be done with maneuver formations. Rev didn’t understand how it could work, but it sounded fun—at least in a training evolution. No one was going to be shooting at them, so there wasn’t any danger of getting killed.
Their “ship,” nicknamed the SS Good Guy, was part of an old hull mounted on four pylons driven into the Enceladus rock. The target ship was a bigger hull five kilometers away. For the purpose of the mission, it was a passenger ship, taken over by twenty pirates. This wasn’t a live-fire exercise. The opfor—pirates in this case—were other instructors, and their mission was to avoid the platoon’s troopers. The platoon would advance on the ship, conduct a simulated breach, and then chase them down.
Yeah. Pretty fun if you ask me.
“Any questions?” First Lieutenant Veang asked the platoon.
There were none.
“Then let’s get ready. I know this is the first exercise for all the new joins, but no one is a cherry here. We’ve all seen combat, so this is nothing. Just concentrate on putting all that we learned yesterday into practice. Oh, and don’t beat up the opfor. I don’t want to have to answer to the colonel.”
Jokes told over a circuit were hard to pull off. The mics in everyone’s helmets filtered out laughter, so Rev didn’t know if the lieutenant’s last comment bombed or not.
The lieutenant was a short, stocky man from Angkor, a planet within the Association of Independent Worlds. Rev hadn’t even heard of the place and had to ask Punch where it was. The lieutenant was young, not yet twenty years old if what Rev was told was correct. But he had two Golden Lions, his planet’s highest award for valor. Rev had Punch pull up the public citations. The man had personally taken out three paladins during one fight, then he had held off a group of five Centaurs from crossing a bridge letting a hundred Ramhold citizens escape to safety during another mission.
In other words, he was a badass.
Which would be good, except for the fact that the guy didn’t seem to like Rev at all. In fact, he seemed to have an active dislike for him.
Rev didn’t know if that was politics—the AIW tended to be on opposite sides of the Union on many issues—or if it had to do with his IBHU. But there was something going on there.
There wasn’t much Rev could do about that, so it was just ignore any slights and do what he was told. The lieutenant was half way through his tour, so all Rev had to do was last a year and a half, and then he’d have a new platoon commander.
“You heard the lieutenant,” Master Sergeant Tina Barber, the platoon sergeant, said. “Everyone activate your suspension harnesses and then take your positions in the Good Guy.”
There was a general movement to the training hulk, with several troopers showing off with somersaults or pinwheels as they went. Rev was feeling confident, but not that confident. He held a steady course, avoiding anyone else as he crossed over. Let the show-offs do their thing. They were probably frustrated with the Weightless Movement 101-nature of yesterday’s lessons.
Still, they didn’t have to rub it in to the rest of the platoon who were not as experienced.
The back of the hulk was gone, exposing the interior, and Rev used it to get into position.
“You ready for this?” Ting-a-ling asked a moment later as he settled in next to Rev.
“Yep. You?”
“I think I’ve got this thing licked. Not much chance to practice this stuff during the war, you know. But at least we’re in the Oscars. Pretty stippy-do sweet, huh?”
“Yeah, sweet.” Rev didn’t tell him what Daryll had said about the Oscars being Heg rejects.
“First Platoon, your exercise starts now. You have ninety minutes to complete it,” the range officer passed.
“That’s us,” SFC Gamay passed. “Into the airlock, now.”
Rev gave Ting-a-ling a light high-five—a heavy one could send them both tumbling—and they joined the rest of the squad and entered the airlock. There was no air to void, of course, but they had to go through the motions. After a minute, the outer door opened, then the squad debarked and moved into a squad V, one team forward and two back, and with each four-person team in a 3D diamond. Master Sergeant Barber was moving with the squad, between the two flanking teams.
Taking Pashu into consideration, the squad leader put Rev’s First Fire Team on the left side of the formation, and Rev took the far-left position in the team’s diamond. This was the first time since Rev had joined the squad that the squad leader had to take his IBHU into account.
The squad flew slowly over the surface of the moon, heading initially at the oblique that would allow them to cut back to arrive at the target along with the other two squads.
Without a real fight pending, Rev’s warrior remained buried, so Rev could simply enjoy the flight. His stomach remained quiet, and he didn’t need to ask Punch for antiemetics. The ground was relatively featureless, the sunlight harsh, but Enceladus had its own kind of beauty. As he thought about it, he was amazed that he, a provincial from New Hope, was flying around a moon in the home system. And this was his second time in the home system in less than a year.
After two klicks, however, much of the newness of what he was doing had worn off. So, he tried a few of the maneuvers Corporal Cathcart had taught him. He cut his thrusters, then using the lasso, he turned his body to face outboard, as he might in a diamond formation on land. His angular momentum remained the same, so he kept his place in the formation, but he was now flying sideways, so to speak, oriented outward.
Eventually, Rev’s angular momentum would slow. Enceladus had an atmosphere of sorts, water vapor that escaped from the surface. It was so sparse, however, that Rev could make it all the way to the target without any significant loss of momentum.
Except for the fact that the squad wasn’t flying directly to the target. When the squad leader gave them their new heading, Rev had to quickly rotate back and use his thrusters again. The delay put him out of position for a moment, and he had to adjust his course to slip back into position.
“Keep it tight, Pelletier,” the squad leader passed.
Good way to start off my first exercise. Head in the game, Reverent.
The target appeared over the horizon as they closed. Like the Good Guy, the SS Meatgrinder was suspended on pylons, but while the former barely qualified as a hulk, the Meatgrinder was a whole ship, replete with passages, berthing, a bridge, an engine room, and everything else needed to ply the space lanes.
The breaching team within Second Squad wouldn’t actually knock a hole in the hull. They’d set up their tube over an existing breach. And once inside, there would be no live fire. To register a kill, they had to physically touch the opfor. True, that part was far from realistic, but the intent of the exercise was to practice maneuvering in a null G environment.
As Rev had thought before, it sounded like fun. And as they approached the ship, Rev’s warrior surprised him by trying to emerge. No real combat or not, evidently, the competition was enough to excite him.
First and Third Squads, coming in from different directions, were the security element. The troopers would land on the hull and cover Second while that squad made the breach. Once Second was inside the Meatgrinder, the other two squads would follow and join what was almost an adult game of tag.
Rev started getting a little nervous as they got closer. This was his second actual approach in Null G, the first being on Asteroid 6-067-442. He’d managed that, but this time, he was with troopers from across human space. He had to do it right if he wanted to make the Union proud. Not just the Union, but the IBHU program. He was kind of difficult to miss, and if he screwed up, everyone, not just his squad, would know who it was.
“Initiate approach,” the squad leader passed at two hundred meters out.
Rev pulled up the landing lattice overlay and placed it over the image of the target ship. His landing position was now a red spot near the breach. As they got closer, the overlay expanded to keep in position on the ship.
“Let me know when we’re at forty meters,” he told Punch. His helmet display was counting down the distance, but there were too many moving parts to what he was doing, and anything he could pass off was one less thing he had to monitor.
He gave his forward thrusters a tiny jolt to slow him down.
“Too soon, Pelletier,” the squad leader immediately passed.
Shit. She’s watching me like a hawk.
“Roger that.” But he didn’t want to speed up again, so he left it at that. He might land a few seconds late, but it was what it was.
He’d slowed down more than he’d thought, however, and he was going to be more than a little late. To his right and now ahead of him, Corporal Akkeke, who had far more experience in Null G ops, performed a move they hadn’t been taught the day before, a sort of half twist with three somersaults, coming out perfectly aligned for a feet-first landing on the ship. He was showboating, the extra somersaults needless, and that pissed Rev off, but he had to admit that the trooper had performed it flawlessly.
<Forty meters.>
Rev slowly brought Pashu across his chest and bent at the waist.
<Thirty meters.>
Rev kicked back hard, trying to keep perfectly aligned. He bent his legs and brought them in, then extended them before kicking them back again. It took three times, but he was generally now feet first and only slightly off-kilter.
He gave his forward-facing thrusters three small bursts, and his feet hit the Meatgrinder’s hull with barely any momentum. He didn’t even have to flex his legs to absorb the shock. Immediately, he activated his geckos, securing him to the ship.
Rev hadn’t been maneuvering in a tactical manner. He’d completely ignored that he wouldn’t have been able to deploy Pashu had it been necessary, but he’d accomplished this exercise’s objective. He wanted to shout out in victory, but that would be about the most newbie thing he could do. He looked to his right to Ting-a-ling’s position, ready to send him a P2P, but the Frisian had misjudged, and he’d stopped a good three meters from the hull. Now, he was flailing a bit with his legs as he tried to orient himself to be able to close that distance.
Sorry about that, Ting, but better you than me.
Not that he’d give his friend shit about his landing later. Of course not. No, never.
He smiled as he tried to come up with a real zinger.
The Frisian should have just stopped and taken his time, but instead, he struggled, forgetting his lessons. Finally, he was face down, and he pulsed his thrusters, bringing him the rest of the way. He managed to get his feet under him and made contact.
“Don’t even say it, Rev,” he said the moment Rev opened up the P2P. “Gamay already gave me a ration of shit.”
Rev bit back what he was going to say. He’d save it for later.
“Now that we’re all finally on the ship, I want all of you to just forget the tactical play for a moment and watch Second Squad come in, particularly the breach team. We’ll critique it later, but note what you think they do well and where they could have done better,” SFC Gamay passed.
Rev looked up—relative up, that is. He was essentially standing horizontal to the moon’s surface, and while the suspension harness was keeping him in place, his inner ears told him that “down” wasn’t toward his feet but rather to the moon’s down. It was a tiny pull, but it was still disorienting, especially now that his mind wasn’t taken up with maneuvering.
He swallowed hard and tried to ignore the ground as Second Squad made its approach. Four troopers made up the breaching team, and they looked like four pallbearers carrying a tubular coffin between them. These were four of the most experienced troopers in the squad, all with extensive Null G experience. As the team had to deal with the extra mass of the breaching tube, that was probably a pretty good call.
Rev’s position on the hull was right next to the ready-made breach, so he had a head-on view as the team approached. It seemed to him that they were coming in too fast, but that might be because he was being overly cautious. The four had proven themselves to be skilled in Null G.
“OK, right about now,” he told himself when he thought they should reverse and start slowing down.
Only they kept coming, and coming fast. The right front trooper raised his free hand and outboard leg, and the other three followed suit. That wasn’t anything that they’d been introduced to the day before. According to their class this morning, a breaching team wasn’t supposed to maneuver. They would simply slow down, then bring their feet up and through until they hit. With the breaching tube as an anchor, that would steady them though the process.
Rev watched with interest to see what they were going to do. Then with almost one motion, all four snapped their arms and legs down. At this close range, and as they started tumbling, Rev could see their rear thrusters tilt upward, adding their momentum. The four, with the tube in their grasp, started a slow somersault.
Pretty cool, Rev had to admit as they spun. Not tactical in the least, and they’d probably get their asses chewed for showing off, but cool nonetheless.
He watched in open admiration, not realizing exactly when it all started going wrong. Instead of keeping the breaching tube tumbling along the vertical axis, it started drifting to the side. The trooper on the back left side twisted toward it and yanked it back into place, but they lost their grip and tumbled backward, head over heels.
“Drop the breaching tube, now!” a voice came over the platoon net.
But the three still on it ignored the order. They struggled to right the tube but were working at cross purposes, and that sent the tube even more off-kilter.
Rev stared slack-jawed, wondering if he should try to help, but it was too late. Voices were yelling at the three, and Rev realized it could come down and hit him. He shuffled a few steps back, watching as the three troopers struggled to manhandle the 900 kg tube. One of them—Rev had lost track of where the trooper had started—positioned themselves at the end of the tube, trying to time the tumble to slow it down with their suit thrusters. It didn’t work. Maybe given enough space and enough time, it could have. But they were simply too close.
Rev stared in horror as they raced across the final twenty meters. The tube was rotating quicker now, and the end with the trooper clinging to it came around just as it hit, smashing the trooper between it and the hull with a shock that Rev felt through his boots.
The breaching tube bounced off, smashing the helmet of one of the others along the way. Blood fountained from the demolished faceplate, almost instantly crystallizing as the trooper spun backward, the frozen blood spraying in an arc.
The net was alive with voices, but Rev tuned them out. He started forward to the body that had been crushed between the tube and the ship. It had begun to slide down the side of the hull toward the ground but quicker than if it was just the microgravity taking it.
Rev lowered himself, pushed off into a dive, and caught the body just as it cleared the side of the ship. Without trying to figure out which maneuver would work, he instinctively twisted like a cat, putting his body between the trooper and the ground, so when they hit, he took the brunt of the shock.
As they rebounded, Rev caught a look inside the other’s face shield. Rev had met her before, a corporal, but the name escaped him at the moment. Close-cropped red hair, pale white skin, and eyes open in pain and fear. Blood bubbled from out of her mouth.
“You’re going to be OK!” he shouted into his helmet mic, not knowing if she could hear.
They bounced on the ground again, and this time climbed away from the surface. For a moment, he thought he was still under thrust, but it wasn’t him. The trooper’s thrust was still powered, and it was taking them away from the ship.
“Can you shut off your thrusters?”
She didn’t respond. Either she couldn’t hear him, or she was beyond help. He looked down at her front, and his heart sunk. The suit was wide open to what was essentially a vacuum. Bloody crystals merged with the blue suit sealer that was trying to close the rents, but it was never designed for this kind of damage.
They bounced again on the ground, and he almost lost his grip. He had to do something, first and foremost being to seal the front of the Oscar. The helmet’s safety system had closed it off, so she had O2, but not for long. She had to get to the training safety ship.
Rev had nothing to close off that kind of damage, so he did the only thing he could think of. He brought her up, so they were face-to-face, then wrapped Pashu around her and hugged her tight. Her face twisted in agony, not centimeters from his, but Rev didn’t let up. Pashu was stronger than any organic arm, and he cranked her down. Better to crush the trooper than let her bleed out. He wrapped both of his legs around hers, trapping her there.
“Pelletier! Pelletier!”
“Wait!” he shouted, not wanting to be distracted.
With his right arm, he reached for the buddy tube. After twisting it out of its recessed sleeve, he managed to slap the nozzle into the valve at the base of her helmet.
“Give her air.”
<Roger. Starting now.>
He finally took a moment to look around. The ship was farther than he’d thought. Four troopers were bearing down on him—three from the platoon and an instructor with his bright green helmet.
“Staff Sergeant Pelletier. What is Corporal LeMay’s condition?”
Rev looked into the corporal’s faceplate. Her eyes were half-closed, but the blood was bubbling with each breath.
“Alive, but she’s bad off.”
“Can you maneuver her back to us?”
“No. Her front has been ripped open. I’m holding it closed with my body.”
“Crap. OK. You keep your hold on her. We’ll be there in a moment.”
It was a long moment, but the four matched their trajectory. The instructor got close to examine how well Rev was forming a seal.
“It’s not a great seal, but I don’t think we can risk you letting go. We’re going to have to take you in tow to the safety vessel. You three, we aren’t going to touch the corporal. Lieutenant, if you can take the staff sergeant’s right dead man’s handle, and Corporal Akkeke, you take the left. Sergeant Tims, you and I are going to daisy chain them. Staff Sergeant Pelletier, you just hold on. Her thrusters are going to be working against us.”
Rev felt the lieutenant and the corporal grab the handles on each of his shoulders. The instructor and Tims locked elbows with those two. Then, with the instructor giving orders, they slowly started turning Rev and Corporal LeMay around in an arc. Her thrusters kept trying to pull her away, but it was nothing for Rev to hold her tight.
“I think we need to hurry,” Rev said as he watched the corporal fade. The blood bubbles got smaller and intermittent.
“You just keep the pressure on,” the instructor said.
The safety vessel, which was little more than a four-man skiff, appeared, heading their way. The instructor had them swing in another wide loop so they could come around and match the vessel’s path.
The airlock was designated with a large red arrow. It was already open, a green light flashing inside.
“You’re going to have to go in with her, Staff Sergeant,” the instructor told him. “As soon as the air is pumped in, the thrusters should automatically cut. If they don’t, you just keep them pointed at the bulkhead.”
Rev knew that the little ion thrusters were not something anyone wanted to have hit them, but with all his risk for the rot, he wasn’t concerned with one more carcinogen. He wasn’t going to worry about it.
It took some maneuvering for the four to get the two of them inside. The corporal’s Oscar kept wanting to push them out. Rev had to twist around so her Oscar was pushing them inside instead. The instructor hit the button, and the door closed. Almost immediately, air started whooshing in. Rev felt the moment the thrusters cut off. At least that worked.
The inner hatch opened, and a medic reached in.
“I’ve got her,” he said.
Rev let go as the medic pulled her up and onto a white bed. He ignored Rev as he popped the helmet, checked her eyes, and then started to cut the suit away.
Rev didn’t know what else to do, so he eased out of the airlock and pulled himself to the foot of the bed. He looked but then wished he hadn’t. Her belly and lower chest were a crushed mess. Ghost white skin along her exposed shoulders and legs only made the blood seem that much brighter.
He had to look away, and his eyes went down to his front. It wasn’t much better. It wasn’t just covered in blood. Bits of her flesh clung to him. He tried to wipe them off, but it was a lost cause.
The medic pulled a meter-and-a-half long sheet of a translucent material connected to an arm over the corporal, then lowered it over her body. He pushed a button, and the sheet seemed to mold over her. Next, he lowered a mask over her face before he finally stepped back.
“Is she going to be OK?”
“Good chance of it, I’d say. She’s facing a lot of regen. Too much tissue damage, but her brain scan is pretty good, all things considered. But I’m not a doctor, so they’ll have a better idea of what her prognosis will be.”
Rev couldn’t do anything for her now, and to be honest, he was feeling uncomfortable looking at her lying there.
“Should I, you know, get out now? So I can get back to my platoon?”
The medic laughed. “It’d be a long flight back. We’re half way to the hospital now. So, settle in, and once we get her offloaded, someone will come by to get you transport back.”
* * *
It was twelve long hours before Rev got back to the company area. He debarked the safety bird at the hospital and was told to wait in the lobby outside the ER. So, he waited. After three hours and six episodes of “Sunset Dogs” that Punch played for him, he tried to raise the company through his Oscar’s comms, but there was nothing. Five more hours later, a master sergeant saw him in the lobby and asked him what he was doing there. When Rev told him he was waiting for transport, the master sergeant told him this was a hospital, not a transportation company.
“You’re going to have to take the tram to Nkomo,” the master sergeant said.
Rev somehow managed to keep from rolling his eyes. He was tired and hungry, and he had no idea where he was. Well, that wasn’t true. He had Enceladus’s magnetic field downloaded, so with his augments, he did know where he was on the moon. And if asked, he could point toward Fort Nkomo. He just didn’t know how to get there from where he was.
But he didn’t want to get into a pissing contest with a master sergeant. So, he stood, but before he left, he asked, “Any way I can get an update on the trooper I came in with?”
The master sergeant frowned, and Rev thought he was going to say no, but with a grunt, he asked, “What’s his name?”
“I don’t know. I think they said Corporal LeMay. I’m new to the unit, and I don’t know her. But she’s in Fox, Second of the Second. There was someone else, too. He came in after we did.”
The master sergeant went to the registration desk and asked the medic there, standing and nodding as he listened. Twice he looked back to Rev. Finally, he thanked the medic and came back.
“Corporal LeMay is going to pull through. I won’t lie to you, though. She’s got a long row to hoe. Sergeant Willis over there just told me what you did out there. Smart thinking, Staff Sergeant. You kept her brain oxygenated and her exposed tissue from freezing, so you cut off a year of regen and rehab, at least.”
Rev felt a wave of relief. Just sitting there for eight hours, not knowing, was the worst thing. Maybe he should have asked earlier.
“And the other trooper?”
The master sergeant grimaced. “I’m probably not supposed to tell you this, but it’s a real long shot that they’ll be able to bring Sergeant Wuhing back. Too much brain matter lost, and what was left was exposed to the vacuum for too long. The docs won’t know if they can zombie him for a couple of days, but I wouldn’t get my hopes up.”
Rev didn’t know the sergeant, but they were brothers in arms, and that was a gut punch. He’d seen more than his fair share of death as a Marine. He’d lost close friends. But not in training. It somehow seemed obscene.
“Hey, I wish I could get you a ride back, but like I said, we’re a hospital. You’ve been here how long?”
“About eight hours, Top.”
“Hell, you must be starving. The chow hall is closed now, but if you don’t mind venfab, I can hook you up. I guessing you don’t have your credit wand.”
“No. We were in field training. And venfab would be fine right about now.”
The master sergeant crooked his finger, motioning Rev to follow. They went through the doors into the ER. Rev looked into some of the beds as they passed, but he didn’t see Corporal LeMay. The top led him to the machine by the nurses’ station. There were some vending fabricators that had programs for thousands of dishes. This wasn’t one of them.
With limited choices, he selected spaghetti with marinara, and the master sergeant paid for it.
“I’ve got to get going, Staff Sergeant. You can eat here, then I’m afraid you’re on your own in getting back.”
“I’ll find the way. And thanks for the meal.”
The master sergeant took a long look at Pashu. Rev could see he was curious, but he didn’t ask anything before he turned and strode off. Which, Rev had learned by now, was a pretty common reaction in the Home Guard. Given his instructions to try and learn about the other services while keeping Union information close to this vest, Rev wondered if the mind-your-own-business nature was just part of Home Guard culture.
He downed the spaghetti within a minute and asked one of the nurses how to get to the tram. Whatever he had just concluded about Home Guard culture ignoring others, he could throw that out the window. As he walked down the hospital corridors in his Oscar, Pashu hanging from his shoulder, he drew plenty of stares. Half of the people got out of his way and stopped dead to look at him.
He found the elevator down to the lift, surprising two people who were coming down from an upper floor. He stepped inside, crowding them with his IBHU.
“Evening,” he said as if nothing was unusual.
“Evening,” the woman said, while the man just gawked.
Rev was getting a little self-conscious with all the stares. He cracked his neck, then stretched out both his organic arm and Pashu, and the man jumped. Rev was being a jerk, he knew, but what was the real harm?
“I’ve heard about you. Union, right?” the woman—Rev could see the gold leaf of a major on her scrubs pocket—asked.
“Union Marines, ma’am.”
“Boy, I would love to pick your brain,” she said before she turned to the lights as they indicated the changing floors.
Rev didn’t know what she meant. It could be professional curiosity, given her scrubs, or she could be from a nation that wanted the tech. He just stared ahead and was relieved when the door opened.
He checked the map of the system. He’d have to change trams once, but he should be back at Fort Nkomo in less than an hour. As he started to his track, a drone flew in front of him and ordered him to stop.
“You are not allowed on the tram in a combat suit.”
“What? I’ve got to get back to my base.”
“Well, you need to either ditch the Oscar somewhere or find somehow else to get back.”
Rev realized it wasn’t the drone’s AI speaking. A real person was on the other side of the transmission.
“Can’t you give me a break? I need to get back. I came here on a medivac from the field.”
“Sorry, but no. And it’s not just your Oscar. You’re carrying a weapon.”
Rev lifted Pashu. “I’m not carrying her. She’s a part of me.”
“Whoa. I guess it is. What’s your name and unit?”
“Staff Sergeant Reverent Pelletier. Fox Company, Second of the Second.”
“OK, wait one.”
Rev stood there, feeling stupid with the drone hovering right in front of his face. People flowed around him, giving him a wide berth.
After about three minutes, the voice came back. “Wow. This is a new one for me. I contacted your unit. They wanted to know why you haven’t called back to them.”
“I tried. The comms on this Oscar suck. Can’t do anything with the curvature of this moon.”
“You never tried to call from the hospital?”
Well, shit, Rev thought as he could feel his face getting red. Yeah, I guess I should have asked someone there to tell the company what was going on.
He’d just acted like a private, sitting and doing what he was told. But he wasn’t a private. He was a Marine SNCO, and they were supposed to take the initiative and adjust to the situation.
“No matter. They told me to tell you to go back to the hospital and get them to give you some scrubs to wear. You’re going to have to leave your combat suit and . . . arm there. You’re not getting on the tram with that thing.”
“My IBHU? Leave it?”
“Yeah. They have an armory. If that isn’t big enough, then you’ll need to have them contact your brigade for an armorer to come and pick it up.”
There was no way Rev was going to give up Pashu to some unknown armorer. There was a reason the Second Brigade IBHUs were all being kept together with Daryll in a separate armory. Certain nations would love to be able to examine them, and despite the kumbaya-era of humanity, the Union was not giving up their IBHU secrets that easily.
And from a personal level, Rev wouldn’t give Pashu up anyway. He didn’t want her to be a quarter of the way around Enceladus with no surety when he’d get her back.
Nope. No way.
“Look, that’s not going to work. I can’t get separated from my IBHU. Can’t you just make an exception here? I’ll sit quietly and not bother anyone. And it’s not like people haven’t seen a trooper before. That’s what this moon is for, right? It’s a military base?”
“No can do, Staff Sergeant. This is Encelasucks, where there’re regulations about other regulations. If you get on the tram like you are, some flag officer paper-pusher or civilian bigwig’s going to have a heart attack. Unless your company wants to come get you, you’re going to have to ditch that weapon if you want to get back.”
Fat chance on that. They’ll tell me the same thing.
But someone might.
“Look, can you do me a solid? I need you to contact Mr. Daryll Begay. He’s a Sieben contractor. He’s at . . .”
Rev had to pause to ask Punch for Daryll’s number. It was saved on his quantphone and tablet, and he didn’t know it from memory.
“ . . . Four-four-three-one, six-two-nine, five-four-eight. Tell him what’s happened and that you told me I have to leave my IBHU here to get back.”
“Uh, I’m just monitoring the terminal when there’s something flagged. I can’t spend my time connecting calls.”
“Please? I really need this favor here.”
Rev felt ridiculous begging a small drone while people gave him weird looks as they streamed by, coming and going to the tram.
“You’re one of those Union supersoldiers, right? That’s what that arm is.”
“Yeah. Union Marines.”
“Hell, I’m from Paxus. I guess I can do a favor for a fellow outer reaches soldier.”
Rev almost corrected him with “Marine,” but he bit his tongue. He also didn’t mention that while Paxus was historically a Union ally, it was hardly an outer reaches world.
“Wait one.”
This time it took five minutes before the still-unnamed voice returned. “Hey, man. I called this Begay guy. I don’t know who he is, but it looks like he can get things done. He said do not—and he told me to say it again. Do not—leave your weapon. Go back to the hospital and wait. It might take a while, but someone will come to pick you up.”
A heavy load rolled off his shoulders. He hadn’t been sure that Daryll could do anything. Evidently, working for a major defense contractor meant he could contact those with real pull.
“Thanks. I really appreciate your help.”
“No problem.”
Rev started to turn away, but he stopped. “Hey, what’s your name, anyway.”
“Iridi Tamay. No rank. I’m just one of unwashed masses of civilian support here.”
“Well, thank you, Iridi. If you ever need anything, you know how to reach me.”
The drone did a little dip like a nod. Rev gave it a half-salute and started back to the ER.
Rev had always thought the Marines were often too hidebound and restricted by regulations that made little or no sense. But in the short time he’d been with the Home Guard, they’d put the Marines to shame, making the Corps look like a lawless anarchy.
This whole thing with not being able to board a simple tram because he was in an Oscar and was armed was ridiculous. This was a military base, after all.
But as he looked around, not many of the people who were entering and exiting the tram station had been in uniform.
“How many troopers are on Enceladus?” he asked Punch.
<Two brigades and support units. Approximately seven thousand in uniform.>
“And how many civilians.”
<Approximately 125,000 are in support of military operations. Another 60,000 are in other functions.>
“What? A hundred and twenty-five thousand? All to support two brigades?”
<A percentage of those deal with galaxy-wide operations, but most of those personnel are based on Titan.>
If Rev had wondered about the bureaucracy before, this just cemented it for him. It was surprising that the Home Guard got anything done at all.
He stepped off the elevator and made his way back to the ER. The same nurse behind the desk who’d given him the directions looked up as he came back in, then ignored him. Rev went to the corner and took a seat. There was only one other person in the room, and she was engrossed in her pad.
And, of course, Rev didn’t have his pad. Following orders, he’d left his pad and quantphone back in his cell. Next time, orders be damned. He was taking his phone.
But, luckily, he didn’t need a quantphone to take up the time.
“So, where were we with ‘Sunset Dogs?’” he asked Punch.
<Approximately half way through Episode Fifteen.>
“It looks like it’s going to be a while, so let’s get it going again.”
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