Europa Strike(82)

Kaminski’s sudden appearance had been like a dash of ice water in the face, a sharp reawakening to reality. For a while there, the skylarking had pushed the sheer alienness of this place back, held it at bay. It was amazing, he thought, what humans could learn to accept as normal, given even a little time and adaptability. Even with space suits, even with Jupiter in the sky, the ten of them had forgotten for a moment where they were.

Maybe that was an indication of just how much they didn’t want to be there. Now it all came back. Damn…why did Tone have to buy it?

“My God,” Lucky said. “I hate this place.”

He’d forgotten the private channel was still open. “Welcome to Bumfuq,” BJ told him.





FIFTEEN




20 OCTOBER 2067

CO’s Office, E-DARES Facility

Ice Station Zebra, Europa

0910 hours Zulu



Jeff shook his head sadly. “What the hell were you thinking, Gunny? If someone had torn their suit falling on the ice…”

Tom Pope stood at attention, “centered on the hatch” in front of Jeff’s desk. “No excuse, sir.”

“Don’t give me that Parris Island shit, Gunny! You’ve been in the Corps—what?—thirteen years?”

“Fourteen, sir.”

“Long enough to know better. Why didn’t you stop it?”

Pope’s eyebrow arced toward the dark fuzz of his hairline. “Begging the Major’s pardon, sir…but I saw no reason to. They’d been working hard, they had some down time. I saw no reason they couldn’t have a little fun.”

“‘A little fun.’ A little fun?” He checked an entry on his PAD display. “Corporal Cartwright had a small hole blown in her suit in the first battle Monday. Her suit had a temporary patch installed on the field. Suppose that make-do had blown while she was screwing around on the ice?”

“Her suit had been checked out by the armorer, sir. I double-checked it myself. If there was a problem with the repair, then she shouldn’t have been out there in that suit at all.”

“Agreed. That’s not the issue.”

“Then, begging the major’s pardon again, I’m not sure I understand what is.”

“The issue is responsible behavior. From the men and women of this company. From the man who was entrusted with their safety. Damn it, in the past three days, we’ve gone through four attacks. We’ve lost thirty-four people altogether—thirty-four people! Almost half of our strength! We damned sure can’t afford to lose any more, and we sure as hell can’t lose any to dumb-ass accidents caused by skylarking!”

“Nothing happened, sir.”

“No. Thank God. But, damn it, why were they even on the surface unless it was absolutely necessary? The idea is to keep surface exposure to a minimum. It’s not just that I don’t want them cracking a visor or tearing a suit and dying up there. I’d like to know they have a chance of retiring from the Corps, living to a ripe old age, and not dying of cancer! Or radiation sickness, six months from now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeff glared at him for a moment. Tom Pope was a good man. Silver Star, Bronze Star with cluster, three Purple Hearts. He’d fought in Cuba, Mexico, and Russia, and been part of the Marine Recon/SEAL team that had taken down those Brazilian terrorists on the cruise ship in Puerto Rico five years back and disarmed that do-it-yourself nuke they were smuggling into Miami. After that, he’d been at Parris Island, first as an assistant drill instructor, then as a DI, until he’d been accepted for Space Training at Quantico. There was no questioning his bravery…or his intelligence.

He decided to try a different approach.

“Okay, Tom,” he said. “I can’t believe you didn’t have a reason for standing by and letting that happen. You’re too good a gunnery sergeant, too good a Marine to let that sort of skylarking go on without a reason. You care to enlighten me?”

“Sir, I—”

“I don’t know the men and women in Second Platoon as well as you do. If I’m missing something, I want to know what it is.”

“It’s not something wrong, exactly…”

Jeff said nothing but waited for him to continue.

“Look, sir, all I’ve got to go on here is a hunch, a feeling. This place has the company spooked. It has us all spooked. Working and fighting up there, with Jupiter hanging overhead like a big, staring eye—”

“Tom, you’re not pulling some sort of canned peaches shit on me here, are you?”

Canned peaches was an old, old tradition in the Corps, a quirk going back at least as far as World War II and the first amtracs used to storm enemy-held beaches. Corps superstition held that it was bad luck to eat canned peaches aboard any Marine vehicle, especially armor or amphibious vehicles. Marines who’d found peaches in their rations had always assiduously traded them to members of the other services—Navy or Army—in order to avoid mechanical breakdown.