24
“I think it was just an overabundance of caution,” Tanu said. “We hurt them bad, but unless the damned Navy can hold the skies, we can’t do much more.”
“I’m not so sure. After only three hours and change? We wouldn’t have even gotten the entire regiment onto the planet,” Staff Sergeant Montez said.
“It wasn’t us. I heard that the Bucks got their asses handed to them. Never reached the surface,” Sergeant Nix said.
“Now where would you hear that?” the lieutenant asked in a snarl. “We’ve been stuck in here together since we embarked.”
“Just saying, sir. I mean, maybe I overheard it from one of the swabbies. I don’t know.”
“Let’s just keep the rumor mill to a minimum, OK?”
The lieutenant rolled over in the bunk, face to the bulkhead. Rev didn’t know if he was going to sleep or was just trying to keep out of the conversation. But he’d been right. The little Navy boat had taken them to a larger ship, then taken off again the second the team had cleared the hangar. They didn’t even know the name of the ship, and no one took the time to inform them. They’d stayed in the ready room for twenty minutes before several sailors rushed in to grab Fatima’s body.
From their talk, she was getting transported to another ship, which probably meant two things: one, this ship didn’t have an advanced enough sickbay to zombie her, and two, she wasn’t just some casual civilian. She had to be Omega Division, Gunny had said.
All that meant, however, was that she had a chance. Her brain hadn’t been hit, and she was still within the window . . . barely. But Omega Division or Secretary General of the COH, Mother Nature had her own rules that were unbending.
Four minutes later, five weary-looking Drop Marines were dumped in with them, but before anyone could ask them what had happened, the team was hustled out, jammed into the little berthing space, and told to stay there and out of the way. From the personal effects still in the space, they knew they were taking over some sailors’ racks.
“How’s the foot?” Kel asked, sliding closer to him.
Rev had almost forgotten about it.
Almost.
But with her mention, it started aching again.
“S’all right,” he told her.
She motioned for him to lift his foot into her lap. She prodded it, which made him wince, and he wondered why his damned nanos hadn’t deadened all the pain yet.
“Most of the Nuskin’s been torn off. I’ll get some more from the ship’s sickbay, but I don’t think there’s any major damage. A week on light duty, and I think you’ll be fine.”
Tanu was sitting in the rack across from Rev, the space so narrow that they were almost touching knees. He was looking at Rev’s foot, his mouth in a little grimace.
“That bad?” Rev asked sarcastically.
“No, not really. I mean, yeah, it looks like shit, but man, for a boot, you really kicked some Centaur ass.”
“Who you calling a boot, Private First Class Tanuwijaya?” Tomiko said, theatrically emphasizing his name and rank. “You’ve barely been in longer than us. ’Sides, the tin-ass shot off his boot, so you can’t be calling him that anymore,” she added, pointing at Rev’s foot, which was still in Kel’s lap.
It wasn’t that funny, but in the stress of what they’d gone through, not knowing what was going on, it was as if the team was grasping for a reason to laugh. Everyone broke out, even the lieutenant faking sleep.
“It’s official. No more calling Pelletier ‘boot.’ You’re going to have to come up with another name. I have spoken,” the gunny said, which caused even more laughter.
Several names were offered, only a few that could be repeated in polite company, and Rev was careful not to object to any of the worse ones. Old Mr. Oliva, back before he’d reported in, had warned him about that. Object to a nickname, and that was going to be it.
What had happened wasn’t forgotten. It remained hanging over them, a lurking presence, and eventually, the conversations drifted back to it.
“Do you think Hus-Man made it off the planet?” Tomiko said, breaking a superstition.
Gunny reached down from the upper rack and gave her a smack on the top of the head. He was Old School, and he followed every Marine superstition to the letter. It was bad luck to ask about missing comrades.
But Rev wanted to know, too. Hussein had been on his mind ever since they left the planet. Technically, they’d still be on comms silence as they’d boarded the Navy boat, but the lieutenant probably figured a fifteen-meter-long boat trumped the possibility that he might give away their position to the Centaurs, and he’d tried to raise Hussein on a tight beam, but there had been no answer.
“OK, then,” Tomiko said, smoothing back her hair. “How much of the regiment got off? Of all three regiments?”
“The brass would have an extract all planned out,” Kel said. “If this was turning south on us, I’m betting most of us got off. We’ll return to Nguyen, gather ourselves, and come back and do it right next time.”
“Damn right,” Tanu said.
Rev looked over at the staff sergeant to see her reaction to that. She always seemed to have the most complete grasp of the situation among the team members. Her face was an impassive mask, and he didn’t know if that was good or bad.
“I don’t know. I just got me a bad feeling about all of this,” Sergeant Nix said. “Remember Julia’s World?”
“That was then, this is now,” the gunny snapped.
Rev knew that Julia’s World had been a bad defeat, but he didn’t know the details.
“Remind me to ask you about that,” he subvocalized.
<Understood.>
“Look. We don’t know shit now, and I don’t see us high enough on the food scale for the Task Force Commanding General to stop everything to give us a call and tell us what happened,” the gunny said.
“So, I suggest we quit guessing and getting ourselves all riled up.” He pulled out a ratty set of cards from his holster. “Knock On, anyone?”
Knock On was the gunny’s favorite game. Rev thought it was a little lame, but the gunny was right. Anything to occupy the mind was better than sitting around, wondering how bad things were. They were alive, ready to fight another day.
Besides, it couldn’t be that bad, right?