Luna Marine(137)

“Shit.” She’d liked Garroway. A lot. Grieve later, she thought. When there’s time! “Okay…keep targeting the ship.”

“Firing!” Then, “Captain, I think we nailed that turret. Nothing there but a hole!”

“You’re sure that’s where the positron beam was coming from?”

“Affirmative! Got it recorded, if you want a replay.”

“Let’s see it.”

Michaels set the replay going in a small window opened in the lower left corner of the main display. It was hard to see, even magnified and in slow motion, but it did look as though a dazzling pinpoint of light had appeared on something like a ball turret set in the UN ship’s hull; an instant later, the horizon had flared in a sun-brilliant detonation, searing the lunar regolith some ten or fifteen kilometers away. As the screen cleared, laser hits from LAV-4’s cannon could clearly be seen shredding the turret like cardboard.

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll call that a kill on the AM weapon, and call for Plan Bravo.” She glanced at the time readout: if Ranger was on time, she should be gentling into Lunar orbit within another few minutes…and would be coming over the western horizon twenty-five minutes after that, but for any number of reasons she could be late, or early. “Start popping com relays every minute,” Carmen added. “Coded for Select Bravo. I want Ranger to pick that up as soon as she clears the ringwall.”

“You got it, Captain.”

“Take us in closer.”

The LAV accelerated, spewing dust like a smoke screen.


PFC Jack Ramsey

USS Ranger

0044 hours GMT

“How about it, people?” Captain Lee said. “Any broken bones? Anyone hurt?” He moved down the aisle, adrift once again in blessed zero G. Jack raised one hand and looked at it; it was trembling, beyond his ability to control it. God…was the entire platoon in this bad a shape?

“My dignity’s pretty badly hurt, Skipper,” one Marine replied, wiping his face with a rag. “Can I be excused?”

“You’ll survive, Logan,” Gunnery Sergeant Bueller told him. “Okay, Marines! Listen up! I want you all to move forward, single file. Take a helmet and gloves from Lance Corporal Schultz, seal up tight, then check your weapon. Remember, do not load until your section leader gives you the word!”

Bueller was a short, stocky fireplug of a Marine, with a bulldog’s face and a Doberman’s growl. “Now!” he continued, anchoring himself between two seatbacks. “Are there any Marines who need help making it to the LSCPs? Speak up now, and don’t give me no macho shit! If you’re having trouble navigating, we’ll assign someone to help you!”

Jack considered raising a hand, then decided that he would be okay. He knew what Bueller was looking for; all of the Marines aboard Ranger except Bos, Dillon, and Jack had had plenty of zero-gravity practice. The three of them had had three days at the construction shack to practice, though, and Bueller had made sure they’d worked at moving around without losing a handhold or getting disoriented in the weird, no-up-and-no-down falling sensation of weightlessness.

Ranger’s engines had cut off only moments before, and they were now in orbit around the Moon at a mountain-skimming altitude of only fifty kilometers. The Marines had twenty-two minutes now to get aboard the LSCPs strapped to Ranger’s sides.

He craned his neck, looking for his uncle. There he was. David didn’t seem to be having any trouble moving about; then Jack remembered that the archeologist had spent sixteen months or so on cycler spacecraft going to and from Mars. Though the cyclers had spin gravity habs, he would’ve had plenty of opportunity to practice handling himself in free fall.

He also saw Captain Lee…and was shocked by the expression on the man’s face. After those soothing words during the second half of the flight, it was a little unsettling to see what looked like worry there.

Then Jack remembered the scuttlebutt he’d been hearing for the past several weeks. Captain Lee was rumored to be pretty tight with the L-T commanding 1-SAG’s Bravo Company Second Platoon…and she would be on the ground right now, trying to clear the way for Ranger’s approach and landing. The captain must be sick with worry. Like his DI in boot camp had told him, the First Space Assault Group was an awfully small unit. That meant people formed close bonds within it; it also increased the risk that close friends would die.

He looked again at his Uncle David and wondered if both of them would survive what was about to happen. Jack hadn’t thought much about his own mortality, but there was something about the expression on Rob Lee’s features that demanded it.