Luna Marine(104)
“Yes, sir!”
“Are you aware that you’re probably in violation of half a dozen different copyright laws with this little gem?”
He started to tell the captain that copyrights and programs were still a gray area in law but immediately thought better of it. “Yes, sir.” He swallowed, then added, “It, ah, didn’t start off as something to sell, sir. But, well, things kind of got out of hand.”
“I’m much more concerned about the alterations you introduced into the mil-issue PAD agent. Tampering with that is about as smart as tampering with the pin on a hand grenade. Suppose your alterations left it unable to perform some vital task, like calling up the right tactical data, or providing you with the correct map?”
“Sir, I made very sure that that didn’t happen.”
“Normally, I would put a statement like that down to damned-fool arrogance. However, I am told by Battalion’s technical team that you are correct. Your revisions not only allow AIDE to do everything it was designed to do, they let it operate faster, more efficiently, and smarter. In effect, you’ve managed to upgrade the damned thing to a level-two AI and done it in a smaller and more efficient package. Battalion is still shaking their collective heads over that one.
“As a result, Ramsey, you are going to luck out. This time. My first instinct was to hit you with mast. Deliberate misappropriation and alteration of government property. Endangerment of yourself and your fellow Marines. Even taking into account the fact that you seem to have fallen in with bad company and been led astray, you would’ve been in deep trouble. Those charges could have ended in a general court-martial. Believe me, son, this is some serious shit you’ve stepped in.
“However, Major General Holcomb has reviewed the case, including the recommendations by the tech team. He has directed me to put through your transfer, effective immediately. You will be put on the first transport back to the States, where you will report to the Space Combat Training Command at Quantico, Virginia. There, you will be given a course in space operations.
“It seems, Ramsey, that the Corps is in desperate need right now for people with talents such as yours. You are headed for 1-SAG. Now get the hell out of here.”
“Aye, aye, sir!”
Dazed, ears ringing, Jack all but stumbled from the captain’s office. As he left, though, he heard Rollins turning his full attention to Slider. “You know, Slidell, I’m beginning to think you like being a private! So. I’ll tell you what I’m going to do….”
The thundering, numbing shock of what had just happened didn’t really hit home until fifteen minutes later.
He was going to space after all….
FRIDAY, 12 SEPTEMBER 2042
Vandenberg Aerospace Force
Base
0740 hours PDT
They both showed their passes to the Aerospace Force guard at the front gate, who looked at them carefully before waving them through and saluting. Security at Vandenberg was unusually tight now…a decided case of locking the barn door after the horse had already galloped off. Rob swung the rented blue-and-silver Samurai onto Oceanview Drive with a thin, electric whine and steered for the old Visitor’s Complex, which for several years now had housed the Marine enclave on the base.
“What a mess,” Kaitlin said, as the hydrogen-fueled vehicle passed a burned-over stretch of scrub brush and the charred-forest remains of an H2 tank farm. The smoldering, skeletal remains of a K-120, its blue UN flag still visible on one upthrust wing, sprouted from the center of the farm like some obscenely alien, flame-scorched tree. “Looks like that one pulled a kamikaze smack into the hydrogen tanks.”
“Might’ve just been a lucky hit,” Rob replied.
“Unlucky for the pilot. That’s not one he’s going to walk away from.”
She shivered. She and Rob had been lucky as well, lucky they’d not been on base when the sneak attack had come. The orders confining 1-SAG to base had been lifted three days before, and the next evening, she and Rob, seeking privacy, had gone to a motel off-base to spend the night together.
Their play had been interrupted by the thunder of explosions. By the time they’d gotten back to the base, the attack was over.
A second sentry, a Marine this time, waved them through at the Visitor’s Complex gate. Smoke still stained the morning sky above the airfield and the assembly hangars in the distance; the pall was especially thick above Pad 4B, where it was expected that the fires, fed by ruptured underground feed lines, would continue burning for days more. A Marine Valkyrie rested tail high in the scrub just outside the complex, where its pilot had brought it in for a none-too-gentle emergency touchdown.