Europa Strike(52)

Fortunately, the E-DARES facility had been assembled with an eye to expanding the human presence on Europa. There were only twenty-five scientists and technicians at the CWS base now, but the ass-high E-DARES had bunks and living quarters enough for a population of two hundred. For the first time since they’d boosted from Earth, the Marines actually had room to stretch out.

And, in an ocean with an ambient temperature of 1.7 degrees below zero, there was no problem with overheating.

Jeff scanned through the first several pages downloaded onto his PAD. “So,” he said. “Give me the short version. What do we have to work with?”

“It could be worse,” Kaminski told him. “Though maybe not by a whole lot. We can thank DCL that we’re not out of something really vital. Like food.”

Distributed Cargo Loading as applied to Marine spacecraft was a supply officer’s nightmare, but it guaranteed that each boat going down to the surface of a hostile world carried a little bit of everything necessary for survival.

“Two bugs made it down, so we have eighty-one Marines, one corpsman, six SEALs, and two Navy Bug pilots,” Kaminski continued. “That plus the twenty-five civilians already here gives us 115 mouths to feed. I’ve been over the base inventory with Hallerman, the Supply Officer for the base. Putting everything they have together with what we brought down from the Roosey, we have enough food for four to five weeks, if we go on short rations, starting now. Three weeks if we don’t, tops.”

“I don’t want to institute short rations just yet,” Jeff said. “I want to talk to Earth first, and see when we can expect a relief expedition. Besides, the men are going to be working damned hard these next few days. Let’s give them the fuel they need to keep going. After that, we’ll see.”

“Aye, sir. Every Marine has his own weapon and personal gear, of course,” Kaminski went on. “We have six battery packs per M-580 laser, and no problem recharging ’em off the E-DARES power supply. Likewise for the slaws. We have four of those, with eight power units, plus ten Wyvern launchers and twelve reloads apiece. I’m recommending we pick out three or four of the company’s best marksmen with Wyverns and make them mobile artillery. Help make each round count.”

“Absolutely. Do it.”

“Aye, aye, sir.” He looked at his PAD. “Twelve XM-86 Sentries. Only forty thousand rounds apiece, though, so we’ll have to keep an eye on that. Those things go through DU rounds like peanuts. Communications gear…spare PADS…only two extra suits, but plenty of patches and spare parts. Fifteen portable radar and lidar units, besides what’s built into our suits. Two bugs, plus six cargo transport hoppers they were using here at the base. We may be able to convert some of those to our own purposes. My people are looking into it.”

“Good. Medical supplies?”

“Each Marine has his own M-1 kit, of course. And there’s a fair ER setup here in the base, plus a civilian doctor. Only two beds for a hospital, but we can get around that. They say they have only three liters of artificial blood, and we have ten more, but Doc McCall is setting up to pull donated blood for type, crossmatch, and immune suppression, just in case.”

Jeff made a face. “Is that what I think it is?”

“Whole blood and plasma transfusions, yes, sir. We can still manufacture blood the old-fashioned way, in our bodies, and Doc can stockpile it in the medlab refrigerators.”

Jeff wasn’t sure he trusted the idea of putting blood from one individual into another…but they were a hell of a long way from the facilities for manufacturing the artificial, fluorine-based substitute. In any case, it probably wouldn’t be a problem; combat in space—or in a vacuum environment such as the Europan surface—was generally so deadly that the question wasn’t how to give a transfusion to the wounded so much as it was how to recover the remains.

“Water, no problem,” Kaminski went on. “The base cooks their own. Same with air. Oxygen from water, while nitrogen is recirculated and captured in the waste treatment cycle. They have three point one kilos of antimatter stored topside. That’s enough to provide power for this facility for another couple of years, at least. Various tools, miscellaneous supplies, spare parts for their electrical and computer systems. The complete list is there in my report. Also turns out they’ve got about 190 meters of two-centimeter superconductor wire stored in one of the sheds topside. They’ve been using it for teleop probes beneath the ice.”

“Huh. What do you think we can use that for?”