On his console screen, the surface of Europa was drifting rapidly past, a maze of rust-brown lines against blue-white ice, like dirty cracks in white crystal.
And what awaits us beneath that icy barrier? he wondered. Two of the landers carried miniature abyssal research submarines, similar to those Intelligence had reported the Americans were adapting to this mission. Dr. Zhao, he knew, was determined to meet the Singer Intelligence firsthand.
And Xiang was determined to accompany him.
It might well be man’s first face-to-face encounter with beings from another world—the first within recent historical times, at any rate.
He sincerely hoped that the second option explored by his orders proved to be unnecessary.
Because, despite his calming words to Zhao, they were taking a fearful risk.
Combat Command Center
E-DARES Facility, Cadmus Linea
Europa
0329 hours Zulu
They were gathered in C-cubed, the compartment in the sunken bow of the E-DARES designated as the Marines’ Combat Command Center—Jeff Warhurst; Captain Paul Melendez; Lieutenants Graham, Biehl, Quinlan, and Walthers; Kaminski; and four senior NCOs, the eleven of them scarcely able to move in the cramped quarters as they listened to a static-blasted hiss of relayed radio traffic.
“Yibai mi,” the voice said. “Shang bai fen zhi wushi…”
“‘One hundred meters,’” Chesty Puller translated, speaking over the command center’s intercom. “‘Up fifty percent.’”
“Rongyi…rongyi…”
“It would kind’ve been nice if we could have had some advance warning about where the bastards were coming down,” Lieutenant Ted Graham said, angry. “A couple of men in place with Wyverns would’ve spoiled their party real fast!”
“Liushi mi…Wushi mi…Diao ershi gongli xiaoshi…”
“‘Sixty meters…fifty,’” Chesty translated. “‘Descent at twenty kph.’”
“Any idea yet where they’re coming down?” Jeff asked.
“Negative, sir,” Staff Sergeant John Wolheim, at the radio console, said with a curt shake of his earphones-encased head. “Southwest and well over the horizon. If I had to guess, at least five hundred kilometers…no more than twelve hundred kilometers. I can’t give you closer than that without triangulation.”
Jeff’s fists closed, slowly and tight. I should have thought of that…had at least one more lobber out there.
In fact, he hadn’t thought about it because it was inherently impractical. Lobbers required a human pilot, and positioning one a hundred kilometers away or so meant either exposing the Marine to unacceptable levels of radiation or rotating the lobber’s crew every few hours, an exercise that would quickly become futile in terms of energy expended and men exposed to Europa’s deadly surface conditions.
As it was, Gunnery Sergeant Cukela, a volunteer, was in the sky right now, jockeying a lobber some kilometers directly over the base, gentling the four-legged contraption high enough that it could see over the horizon and pick up the Chinese fleet’s radio chatter.
If he’d known just when the Chinese fleet was going to land, he could have had another lobber ready some distance off, set to ascend at the same time and provide a second bearing that would pinpoint the enemy’s LZ.
Might as well just wish for the LZ coordinates, he thought. And, while you’re at it, a regiment or two of Space Marines in reserve.
The worst part was being this damned blind. On Earth, any Marine unit on the planet had almost instant access to whole constellations of military satellites, including battlefield observers that, on a clear day, could literally look over an enemy officer’s shoulder and read his maps and communications printouts. And there were IR sensors in orbit that could see warm flesh through the concrete roofs of buildings and bunkers.
He had none of that here—not even a naval ship in orbit that could call in sightings. The company inventory included five teleoperated BRDs, Mark VI Battlefield Reconnaissance Drones, “birds” in Marine parlance. He would have to hoard them like a high-tech miser, and when they were gone—birds had a very short lifespan on the battlefield—Bravo Company would be completely in the dark.
“Maybe we should try raising them, sir,” Lieutenant Biehl said. His first and middle names were Charles Andrew, but everyone called the Alabama native “Moe.”
“And what?” Lieutenant Randolph Quinlan replied. “Negotiate? For what? The only thing we can offer them is our surrender.”
“Screw that,” Graham said.
“We’ll talk if they want to talk,” Jeff said. “And they do not enter this crater. Understood?”