“It’s okay, Lucky. I’m not supposed to encourage, um, romantic entanglements within the unit, but I know how these things are. I’m sorry, though. We have the squad TO&Es and assignment lists worked out. I’m not going to change them to help your love life.”
“But, begging the major’s pardon—”
“Can it, Marine. Your girlfriend is a Marine and perfectly able to look out for herself. You, according to the company corpsman, can barely walk, despite that act you put on coming in here.”
“It’s not an act, sir. The leg’s fine. I can walk fine.”
“I’m glad to hear it. But the answer is still no.”
“But—”
“No, Corporal. You’re on the sick list until McCall takes you off. Of the two of you, I’d much rather have your girlfriend at my back in a firefight than you any day! She, at least, will be able to carry a wounded buddy out of the kill zone! Don’t worry, though. There’ll be plenty for you to do here while you’re waiting for us to get back! Dismissed.”
“But, sir, I—”
“Dismissed, Corporal!”
He snapped again to rigid attention. “Aye, aye, sir.” He gave a crisp left-face and strode from the compartment.
After a moment, Jeff rose and walked to the door, quietly leaning out and looking down the passageway. Leckie was walking toward the mess hall, leaning heavily on a makeshift cane with each step. The scam artist must have left it in the passageway while he came in to make his pitch.
He was just about to duck back into C-3 when Sergeant Vincent Cukela rounded a corner at his back. “Oh, excuse me, Major. Can I see you for a moment?”
Jeff sighed, closed his eyes, and jerked his thumb at C-3. “Come in,” he said. “But the answer is no…”
TWENTY
26 OCTOBER 2067
The Pit, E-DARES Facility
Ice Station Zebra, Europa
1312 hours Zulu
The Mantas rested side by side, their tapering aft sections low in the black water, their noses pulled up onto thin ice and moored both to the E-DARES facility’s hull and to rings mounted in the Pit’s ice wall. Their wings had been unfolded and locked, and the black carbon-weave finish was already thickly encrusted with ice.
As the twenty-meter patch of open water was exposed to hard vacuum, it boiled, creating a tenuous and fast-changing local atmosphere of cold steam, the roiling cloud of fog that hung over the depths of the Pit. That steam condensed on any surface it touched and quickly plated out as ice. That could be a problem when the subs were launched, so electrical heating nets had already been draped across most of their exposed surfaces.
Jeff stood on the icy walkway at the bottom of the Pit, watching as the Marines filed out across the gangplanks and boarded the subs. They were having to pass through the Mantas’ airlocks two at a time, and the process took a while.
But it was almost time.
Captain Melendez stood at his side, as always quiet, stolid, and competent. “Take care of the place while I’m gone, Paul.”
“I still wish I was going with you, Major.”
“Of course you do!” Jeff replied, putting as much sarcastic bite into the words as he could. “No one in his right mind would want to stay and try to hold this place with fourteen men! It’ll be much safer where we’re going. But someone’s going to get the short end, and that someone is you!”
Paul chuckled. “Well, take care of yourself, sir. We’ll have the lights on and the covers turned back when you return.”
“Seriously, if you get into trouble, haul ass back to the E-DARES and hunker down. I don’t think the Charlies will risk damaging the facility.”
“Hell, it’s not the Charlies I’m worried about, sir. It’s all those scientists. They outnumber us now, you know!”
“Carry on, Number One.”
“Aye, aye, sir.” He touched his right glove to the corner of his helmet’s visor. “Good trip.”
Jeff returned the salute, turned away, and started down the gangplank, gripping the butt of the 580 slung over his back to keep it from slapping at his thigh as he walked. It was an unaccustomed presence, something he’d not felt for years. Marine Corps dogma held that every man was a rifleman, right down to the cooks and bakers, ground crews, personnel clerks, and fat-ass battalion commanders…but it had still been some time since he’d qualified with a laser rifle in field conditions.
Footing on the gangplank was treacherous with the ice buildup, made worse by the patches of fizzing, H2O2 slickness that kept appearing and disappearing like mirages. He kept a tight grip on the safety line all the way out. It was a tight squeeze through the narrow hatchway into the sub, especially with his bulky PLSS on his back.