Luna Marine(13)
If that first brief and tentative glimpse had been anything to go by, extraterrestrials were…alien, nothing at all like the prosthesis-clad actors and humanoid digital constructs so popular on the science-fiction channels.
“Can the chatter, people,” Lieutenant Garroway’s voice said, cutting in on the channel. Ski flushed inside his helmet, wondering if she’d been listening in long enough to have overheard Pap’s “straight shot” crack. “First Squad’s turn next. Mount up!”
The LSCP’s cargo lock was just barely big enough for twelve men and their gear to pass through at one time, so boarding was by squads. The line of armor-suited Marines started forward, each man carrying his assault rifle slung muzzle down, and at least one other weapon or load. Kaminski was lugging a two-round reload case of twelve-centimeter rockets for Sergeant Payne’s Wyvern. The bulky container only weighed five kilograms on the Moon, but it acted like it weighed thirty. You had to be careful manhandling gear and heavy loads here; a missed step and the load would keep going while you fell flat on your ass. Or your faceplate, which could be worse.
The squad filed into the airlock, then stood packed in shoulder-to-shoulder as the outer door closed and the whine of air vents slowly rose from the vacuum-clad silence. That, Kaminski reflected, was a real problem in using these personnel landing craft for assaults: It just took too damned long to cycle through the airlock…especially if unpleasant locals were shooting at you.
The clear light flashed green, and the inner hatch sighed open. The squad shuffled through into cool green light, joining Second Platoon’s Second Squad, already aboard, and began stowing their rifles and carry-on gear in the secure lockers. “First Squad, sound off!” Gunnery Sergeant Tom Yates barked. “Ahearn!”
“Yo!”
“Anders!”
“Here!”
As Yates ran down the roster, Kaminski backed his way up against one of the slanting, thinly padded shelves lining the sides of the cylindrical compartment, lowering himself carefully onto his backpack PLSS. Yates reached his name with a sharp “Kaminski!”
“Short!” he replied, but Yates ignored the play and kept reciting. In point of fact, he wasn’t short anymore, not after re-upping; that was a joke that was quickly losing its savor. Sometimes he wondered what had possessed him to reenlist during that long, cycler-coast home from Mars. Re-upping had not only restored his former rank of corporal—a rank lost on Mars during that incident with the beer—but guaranteed his promotion to sergeant as soon as the shuttle deposited him and the other Mars veterans once again on the runway at Vandenberg.
But he sure as hell hadn’t signed on for six more years in the Corps for the joy of wearing three stripes above the crossed rifles on his sleeve instead of two. Nor had he joined for the dubious pleasure of being sealed inside an aluminum can for a sardine’s-eye view of a trip to the Moon.
To tell the truth, he wasn’t sure why he’d re-upped, and the not-knowing bothered him. Hell, the first thing he’d learned when he joined the Corps was never volunteer….
The roll call came to an end. “All aboard and squared away, Gunny?” Lieutenant Garroway asked Yates.
“Affirmative, Lieutenant. All present and accounted for, sir.”
“So what’s the word, Lieutenant?” Kaminski called out. “The brass hear from the Aerospace Force, yet?”
“Negative,” Kaitlin replied. “But they must be figuring no news is good news, because the mission is go.”
“Ooh-rah!” a chorus of radioed voices sounded over the channel, in the half-shouted, half-growled Corps battle cry.
“All right, people, listen up!” the lieutenant went on. “Flight time will be approximately three hours. You will stay buttoned up, helmets and gloves.”
The chorus this time consisted of groans and a few choice expletives. “Jesus shit, L-T!” one voice called above the rest. “That’s inhuman!”
“Who is that?” Kaitlin asked. “Nardelli? Just what makes you think you can lay claim to being human?” When the guffaws and laughter had died down, she continued. “You should all have your plissers topped off, but we don’t know how long we’re going to be on the beach, so all of you lash down and plug into your umbilicals.”
Another moment of shuffling and bumping ensued in the narrow cargo space, as the twenty-two Marines, all save Gunny Yates and the lieutenant, took their places, made all too familiar by the long and deadly boring journey out from Earth. Kaminski backed up against one of the craft’s outward-sloping bulkheads and used the harnesses welded there to strap himself in tight. Hoses dragged down from overhead racks snap-locked onto connectors on the sides of his PLSS unit, letting him breathe off the bug’s life support instead of his own. Yates went down the narrow passageway between the Marines, checking the equipment and PLSS connections on each man and woman in turn.