Luna Marine(37)

The ponderous acronym across the bottom of the patch stood for “All The Way To Mars And They Made Us Throw Away The Beer.”

“Our honorary Marine,” Knox had called him when he’d presented the badge. After the shared hardships and dangers of Garroway’s March, after the wild firefight—and the literal beer bust—with UN Foreign Legion troops at the Cydonian base, David Alexander had been…changed.

It was hard to put into words, even now. David had been a Navy brat, and as a kid had dreamed of being an aviator, like his father. After losing his aviator father to an equipment failure aboard the USS Reagan, though, he’d developed a deep-seated loathing for the military, coupled with a pacifist’s hatred for war in all its forms.

But now? He still hated war and thought that this war, in particular, was suicidally stupid. But for the men he’d been forced to serve with, struggle with, fight beside on Mars, he felt nothing but admiration and respect.

Acceleration slammed at him through the couch, its hand unpleasantly heavy across his chest after three days of free fall. The pressure went on and on for a long time, too. Normally, a Moon-bound craft would decelerate first into Lunar orbit, followed by a second deceleration to drop into a landing approach, and the final burst as it gentled in for a landing. Clarke was combining all three delta-v maneuvers in one, however; no one had said anything definite, but David had heard rumors that the Aerospace Force had already lost a spacecraft passing over the Lunar farside. Coming in straight this way, without an initial orbit, was risky…but it avoided the possibility of being shot down by the rumored UN forces on the side of the Moon always hidden from the Earth.

And as the Clarke plunged from dazzling, white sunlight into the Moon’s shadow, David decided that he was all in favor of that….


Hab One, Picard Base

Mare Crisium, the Moon

0758 hours GMT

“Kaminski!”

“Yeah, Gunny?”

Yates jerked a thumb at the ladder leading to the upper deck of the hab. “Get your sorry butt topside, Sergeant. The captain wants to see ya.”

“Christ, Ski!” Corporal Ahearn shook her head. “What the fuck did you do now?”

“Dunno, Hern,” he said, throwing down his cards. Jesus, always something. It had been a good hand, too. “I ain’t been in trouble for, hell, two or three hours, it seems like.”

Padding across the steel deck in his socks, he hesitated at the ladder. None of the Marines had their boondockers because they’d all arrived in pressure suits, and their shoes were still with the rest of their personal gear, back at Fra Mauro. It seemed…wrong, somehow, to be going up to see the skipper in BDUs and padded green socks.

“Get movin’, Ski,” Yates warned. “She didn’t say tomorrow.”

“Aye, aye, Gunnery Sergeant Yates, sir!” he snapped, and started up the ladder.

Captain Fuentes was seated at the desk that until a few days ago had belonged to the commander of UN forces at Picard, Arnaldo Tessitore of the San Marco Marines. Lieutenant Garroway was perched on the corner of the desk, also in greens and socks. “Sergeant Kaminski, reporting as ordered, ma’am,” he announced, centering himself in front of the desk and coming to attention.

“At ease, Sergeant,” Fuentes said. “According to your records, you were with Major Garroway on Mars.”

Kaminski flicked a quick glance at the lieutenant. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then you knew one of the scientists on the expedition, Dr. Alexander.”

“Huh? Sure!”

“My father told me that you and Alexander were pretty friendly,” Lieutenant Garroway said. “You were with him inside the Cave of Wonders, helped him out, that sort of thing.”

“Uh, yes, ma’am. I guess I was pretty interested in what he was doin’. He let me help out some. And, yeah. He let me come inside the cave with him.” Kaminski suppressed a shudder. “Didn’t like it, though.”

“Why not?”

“Some of those, uh, things on the things like TV screens were pretty, well, they gave me the creeps, ma’am.”

“But you got on well with Alexander?”

“Huh? Yeah! The Professor, he was okay.” Kaminski drew himself up a little straighter. “Th’ way I see it, anyone on the March with us was okay! And the Prof, he did just great, for a civilian.”

“Excellent, Sergeant,” Fuentes said, making a notation with a stylus on the screen of her PAD. “Thank you for volunteering.”

“Volunteering!” He stopped himself, swallowed, and licked his lips. “Uh, if the captain doesn’t mind telling me, what did the sergeant just volunteer for?”