Europa Strike(105)

Something bumped him, and pain clawed at his leg again. It felt like someone was tugging at him from above and behind, where he couldn’t see.

The Charlies! They must have come back for him and were trying to drag him out from beneath the ice fall. His right hand groped at his chest, where his knife was strapped inside its scabbard. Damn. His arm wouldn’t move either.

He was dimly aware that someone was kneeling over him. He felt a click of a connection being made, of the jack for a sound-powered suit intercom being snapped home in the side of his helmet. “Lucky? Lucky! Are you okay?”

It was Lissa.

He’d known it would be Lissa. She was a Marine. Marines never left their own.

“Lucky! It’s me! Corporal Cartwright! You were unconscious, and I couldn’t dig you out from under the ice! I had to go back for help! Can you hear me? Wake up!”

“I’m…awake…” Just barely. He wasn’t able to feel his feet or hands, but he was feeling warm. He could see her face through the smear of blood on his visor, as she peered down into his helmet.

He could see tears glistening on her cheeks.

She looked…beautiful.

“’Lo, Liss,” he said. “I missed you.”

“You didn’t think I’d left you, did you? I couldn’t move you by myself, so I had to go get a little help. Then it turned out the Charlies were launching another assault. We had a bit of a fight on our hands there. But the bad guys got beat, and now we’re back. You know I wouldn’t ever leave you.”

“Nah,” he mumbled, sliding off into unconsciousness. “Marines…look after…own…always…”





NINETEEN


25 OCTOBER 2067

C-3 E-DARES Facility

Ice Station Zebra, Europa

1310 hours Zulu





“Gentlemen, it’s about damned time we took this fight to the enemy.”

He was closeted with his senior personnel in C-3, some of them seated around the makeshift map table in the center of the compartment, the others standing around the perimeter of the small room. They watched him with drawn, haggard faces; the enemy assaults had been coming fast and furious these past few days, as though the enemy commander was trying to overrun the CWS installation before reinforcements arrived.

It might, Jeff thought, be a matter of saving face. Or it might mean something more…a timetable he was unaware of.

“This is our situation, as of time now,” Jeff said. “Combat-trained personnel are down to thirty-two Marines and four SEALs. Four more are in sick bay with injuries. Overall morale is good, but we are desperately short of food, ammo, and items such as tractors. We have no way of knowing what the enemy’s losses are, or the condition of his morale. However, we do know that a second enemy ship will arrive in two days—actually, forty-two hours from now.

“At that time, we will again lose aerospace superiority and come under direct enemy bombardment, and the enemy will be reinforced, perhaps heavily. We can expect to be hit by overwhelming force within the next three to four days. Given Chinese superiority in numbers, armor, and air, this command, quite frankly, cannot be expected to hold out.

“Now. There’s one bit of light in all the gloom and doom. As you all know by now, an American ship is on the way…the Thomas Jefferson. She boosted at about 1930 hours Zulu on Sunday, two days ago.

“HQ has been vague about what’s going on. They report that the Jefferson has suffered a communications failure of some kind, but have been insisting in the clear that there is no relief expedition. This seems to mean either that they’re trying to fox the Chinese into thinking a warship headed this way is not coming to help us, which doesn’t sound all that plausible, or that the Jefferson is operating on her own—which is less plausible by far. Until the TJ’s motives are clear, we should be careful about accepting her deployment at face value.”

Lieutenant Biehl held up a hand.

“Yes, Moe?”

“Sir, does that mean…” he stopped, his face the image of puzzlement. “I’m confused, sir. Are we getting help from Earth or not?”

Jeff smiled. “If the Jefferson is trying to confuse the enemy, I’d have to say she’s doing one hell of a good job. If we’re a little confused about her intentions right now, think what Charlie must be going through!

“Now…on her current trajectory, there’s no other reasonable destination for her except Jupiter space. We’ll know for sure at oh-one hundred hours on the twenty-seventh. That’s when she would have to flip end for end and begin deceleration, assuming one G all the way, but nothing else makes sense. If she doesn’t decelerate, she goes zipping past us at almost four thousand kps, headed for nowhere but deep space.”