A chorus of “Aye, ayes” and “Yes, sirs” sounded in the narrow compartment. The flatscreen on one bulkhead was currently showing a view from a remote camera on the surface, set up on a tripod on the southwest rim. It showed the monotonous flat ice plain of the Europan surface, with faint undulations in the distance.
It had been four days since their landing. Since Europa circled Jupiter in three days and thirteen hours—a revolution that also defined the satellite’s day—they’d already been through one complete cycle of day and night. It was morning, but in eclipse, with the sun hidden behind the vast, black bulge of Jupiter. Enough light was coming off the silver-edged rainbow gilding one slim edge of the planet, though, to illuminate the gently undulating terrain in cold blue hues. The stars shone, steadily, unwinking, and ice-hard in a sky of empty black. In the distance, a working party was just visible in the dim light, digging a pit for an XM-86 Sentry, their tiny forms giving a sense of scale to the moon’s vast wilderness.
When they come, he thought, it will be from that direction.
Not that he wouldn’t cover all approaches. But recon parties had explored the surrounding terrain in lobbers, and reported that the smoothest ground lay along the gentle swell of the Cadmus Linea, extending west and then southwest in the direction of the Chinese LZ. Their first probe, he was sure, would be across easy terrain.
Damn, I hate the waiting.
“Zebra, Zebra, this is Recon One. Do you copy, over?”
“One, this is Zebra,” Wolheim replied. “Go.”
“We are in position, at one-five-niner by three-seven-four, and digging in. Looks like we have the ridge to ourselves.”
“Roger that, Recon One. Keep us posted.”
“Ah, affirmative, Zebra. One out.”
Jeff grinned. During the past couple of days, the Marines had begun calling the CWS base Ice Station Zebra. Cadmus Station was okay, the line went, but it didn’t have any character, didn’t describe the true, desolate feel of the place. A book by a twentieth-century author and a movie of the same vintage provided the new name; Sergeant Leslie Riddel had brought along a memclip for his PAD containing both the illustrated novel and the uncut 2020 remake of the movie, with virtual actors standing in for Rock Hudson, Patrick McGoohan, and the rest. He’d been passing his copy around the company, and the new if unofficial name for Cadmus Base had become inevitable.
It was fitting. The movie had been set on the Arctic ice pack, during the height of the Cold War. Bravo Company was now on the verge of a genuine shooting war, on an icefield that made the Arctic on Earth seem like a warm summer’s afternoon in southern California by comparison.
He’d ordered Knowles and Richardson to take one of the lobbers and establish an OP on the Cadmus Linea ridge a hundred kilometers west of the base. They would have to be relieved soon, and he might not be able to keep the OP permanently manned, but at least it was something to do, something to let the men know that action was being taken.
“Shi mi!”
“‘Ten meters…’”
He tried to imagine the Chinese LZ. They were probably using Descending Thunder landers, a model the CWS had code-named Fat Boy. No flame, no smoke from those plasma engines, but at ten meters, that one must be kicking up a hell of a lot of steam and fog right now.
“Ting lilang! Queding jie!”
“‘Cut power,’” Chesty repeated. “They are confirming that they are down.”
“That makes eight down so far,” Captain Melendez announced. “Do you think that’s all?”
“It matches the configuration Intelligence gave us on the Star Mountain,” Jeff replied. “Let’s hope eight was all they sent us.”
He tried to keep the words light. Eight Fat Boys meant at least two hundred enemy troops, and possibly a good many more than that, depending on how much comfort they’d sacrificed for numbers.
“Raise HQ, Staff Sergeant. Let ’em know the bad guys have arrived.”
“Aye, aye, sir. Any other message?”
Briefly, he toyed with a bit of bravado. In December of 1941, immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Japanese had assaulted the Marine and civilian garrison on Wake Island in the Pacific. The defenders had been able to hold out for sixteen days against overwhelming numbers…a situation not unlike the one Jeff was facing now.
The story had spread that, when asked if there was anything he needed, Major Devereaux, in command of the garrison, had cracked, “You can send us more Japs.”
The story was apocryphal, the result of a misunderstanding of the nonsense phrases used tacked on at the beginning and end of radio messages to frustrate enemy decoding attempts. Jeff’s idea, to tell them to send them more Chinese, would serve no purpose and might even backfire if it adversely affected morale.