Luna Marine(40)

“Where? Here? Or at your base? You’re at Tsiolkovsky, right?”

Billaud sighed. “Your people must know that by now. Yes. And thousands of years ago, another race, another civilization, was there as well. Until they were attacked by les Chasseurs de l’Aube.”

“The…what?”

“‘Hunters of the Dawn’ is how we have translated the name. There appears to have been a terrible war fought, here…and elsewhere.”

“I think you need to tell me more. Everything you can. Please.”

Twenty minutes later, he walked out of the compartment. The three Army officers were there, seated at a table. The Marine guard posted outside the room with the UN scientists stood by the door, and another Marine was leaning against one wall. He straightened as David entered the room. “Hey, Professor!”

“Kaminski!” David said, startled. “What are you doing here?”

“Waitin’ for you. They told me you needed an assistant.”

David nodded absently. “That’s…good….”

“Well?” Whitworth demanded. “Did they tell you anything?”

“Yes,” David replied. “They told me quite a bit.”

Whitworth’s leathery face creased in an unexpected grin. “Excellent, Doctor! You had the routine down just perfect!”

“Routine? What routine?”

“Good cop—bad cop, of course. I had ’em rattled and worried. Then you stepped in and sweet-talked ’em. Works every time!”

The major gave David a sour look. “What did you learn?”

David resented Whitworth’s implication that he’d been playing some sort of game. How little could he get away with telling the bastard and still have it sound convincing? “I’m not sure you’re going to want to hear this,” he replied. And then he told them.

But not everything…especially what Billaud had said about the place he called Gab-Kur-Ra. The alien base uncovered at Tsiolkovsky he decided to keep to himself. He was damned if he would let the military fight over the treasures Billaud had hinted at, as they had the archeological treasure house at Cydonia.


Hab One, Picard Base

Mare Crisium, the Moon

1038 hours GMT

“Why just you?” Kaitlin wanted to know. “The Army’s here. We should all pull back to Fra Mauro.”

Captain Fuentes shrugged. “God knows, Garroway,” she replied. “His message just said he needed to consult with the company commanders. He’s a major, Lee and I are captains, so we’ll go consult. We’ll take Bug Thirty-eight.”

“It’s damned idiocy, if you ask me. Why do you think God invented radios and scrambled channels?”

“Here, now, Lieutenant Garroway!” Captain Rob Lee replied with a wry grin. “Are you actually implying that Battalion has something in its ditty bag masquerading as common sense?”

She smiled. Captain Rob Lee, Alfa Company’s CO, was young, smart, and good-looking, with that sense of rough give-a-damn that she normally associated with fighter jocks. His penchant for scathing one-liners was legendary in 1-SAG.

“That’s asking too much, huh?” she asked. “I have noted a tendency in Major Avery to slip back into his childhood, counting beans and shuffling files.”

Rob closed his eyes. “The major,” he said quietly, but with great seriousness, “is a good man, means well, and works hard. Unfortunately, he would not be able to get a clue if he went out into a field full of horny clues during clue mating season, smeared his naked body with clue musk, and danced the ritual clue mating dance.”

Kaitlin groaned. “Now there’s an image I’d really have preferred you’d kept to yourself.”

“There shouldn’t be a problem, Lieutenant,” Fuentes told her. “You’re senior to Palmer, so you’re in charge of both companies while we’re gone. Colonel Whitworth, of course, will be in overall command of this station, but that shouldn’t affect the regular routine.”

“The routine’s not what’s bothering me, Captain,” Kaitlin said. “It’s the non-routine. If the UNdies are going to counterattack, it’ll be in the next day or two, before we have a chance to get dug in.”

“We should be back by 2200 hours tonight,” Rob told her. He folded his arms. “I imagine the major just wants to go over routine joint-op protocol with us. IFF freaks, pass codes, and so on.”

“Which ought to already be set up,” Fuentes said. “Garroway’s right. If the bad guys hit us anytime soon, we’re screwed, and it won’t help things a bit if we’re attending a fragging staff meeting at Fra Mauro. Damn!”