He decided that it would be best if he didn’t think about what was waiting for him on the Moon. Carefully, Jack checked the harness that held him snug against a thickly padded contour couch. This, he thought, was luxury indeed for a Marine. The hab module of the Ranger had been adapted from the passenger compartment of a Lockheed Ballistic 2020 commercial suborbital transport; all it lacked was a flight attendant or two to pass out snacks and offer pillows.
Six Gs? It sounded like the brass had opted for the fast route to Luna. This was going to be fun.
As Captain Lee continued to check the others, Jack pulled a connector feed from his PAD and plugged it into a receptacle in one of his armrests, then plugged in an intercom jack from his suit. In another moment, the display screen on the seatback in front of him lit up, and Sam’s attractive features looked out at him with a smile. “Hello, Jack” sounded in his helmet headset. “What would you like to do?”
“Hello, Sam,” he replied, using his suit’s intercom channel. “Let’s keep going through the code-break checklist.” That was a long list of different ways Sam might use to get through the target program’s security barriers. The NSA had provided that list, he was told, a compilation of the Agency’s long experience at code-breaking and gaining computer access. Like the list of possible passwords, the checklist was stored in a special one-hundred-terabyte external drive plugged into his PAD.
Bosnivic dropped into the empty seat beside him and started strapping in. “Hey, Flash! Got your girlfriend to play with, I see!” he said on the platoon channel.
“Screw you, Bos,” Jack said amiably. Still, he had to suppress a small start of anger. Bosnivic, like most of the Marines he knew, loved the idea of a sex-goddess PAD agent; what they didn’t know, or didn’t understand, was that Jack himself no longer thought about Sam that way. The last time he’d seen her nude was that afternoon in Colonel Bradley’s office. After that, he’d had Sam herself go through her own code, line by line, finding and deleting every possible trigger command that would have her remove her clothing. For one thing, that saved some space in the PAD’s main storage. For another, it was a lot easier now for him to relate to Sam as a coworker—hell, even as another Marine—instead of as some horny adolescent’s wet dream.
It was not an attitude he knew how to talk about with his fellow Marines, however.
“Twenty bucks says my nutcracker beats yours,” Bosnivic said. “Yours is prettier than mine, but mine is NSA-issue, and it kicks ass.”
Bosnivic and Corporal Diane Dillon each had slightly different versions of the standard National Security Agency nutcracker. The idea was to try all three, the NSA programs and Jack’s modified agent, tripling, in theory, the chances of breaking the UN security code.
“You’re on,” Jack said. “Now go away and let me work.”
“Ha! I can tell my victim’s worried already!”
“All hands,” Captain Lee’s voice sounded over the command channel. “Cut the chatter. Fifteen seconds to boost!”
Quietly, Jack continued to work with Sam using the intercom link; as long as he wasn’t broadcasting over an open channel, he could talk. He was concerned about Sam’s ability to pick up on what might be happening in the target program on the farside of a security barrier. Though everyone was assuming that the UN security wall would be a simple one, there were some nasty twists they could put up if they wanted to—like a counter that ticked off failed attempts and did something nasty after a set number, like wipe the hard drive.
Or detonate an explosive charge. In a spacecraft powered by antimatter, that trick ought to be very easy to arrange.
Weight returned.
The acceleration was gentle at first, a hard nudge that pressed Jack back into his couch with what felt like his normal weight of about seventy-five kilos. He wished the hab module had windows so he could see out; he would have liked to watch the L-3 station falling away astern, or Earth growing larger ahead.
His weight increased.
All of the Marines assigned to this part of the mission had pulled plenty of practice time in the big centrifuge at Quantico. He knew he could take six Gs for a couple of hours, though the experience had left him bruised and sore afterward. But he could do it.
The aisle that the captain had been moving along earlier now looked like a wall; down was toward the back of his seat, and he was lying on that seat with his knees in the air and Sam’s face hanging above him. He guessed they were pulling about three gravities now, the same acceleration developed by a Zeus II during its launch from Earth. It wasn’t too bad; certainly, it didn’t feel like he now weighed 225 kilos. He just felt a bit, well, heavy, was all, like someone was sitting in his lap.