Manxome Foe

6

“Low Earth orbit established,” the pilot said, sighing.

The snaking course upwards was at least partially a necessity. There were thousands of radars across the Earth that could detect the Blade, from warships to airports. The basic course was right down the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, but it was necessary to do various detours around radar emitters, including American ones. Even admirals commanding carrier battle groups weren’t supposed to know about the Blade. Their radar operators sure as heck weren’t supposed to.

But by parking, momentarily, over Antarctica, the Blade could stop to make sure that it wasn’t leaking air. Given that they were planning on being in space for thirty days, straight, they were going to need all the consumables they could carry.

“Overpressure holding in all three compartments,” the XO said after ten minutes. “Loss is… nominal.”

“Nominal may not cut it this time,” the CO said. “I hope you and Commander Weaver worked out a superior method of air recharge this time. I don’t want to be talking like Donald Duck.”

The last time the Blade ran low on air the answer had been to drop into the atmosphere of a Jovian planet and separate oxygen from its atmosphere. Jovians had been found in virtually every system they visited so it was a natural stop. However, various problems had intended upon it, not least of which was that the ship flooded with helium and hydrogen. There was still plenty of oxygen to breathe but the extra gasses caused everyone to speak in a squeak.

“Part of the upgrade was installing a heat bypass system to melt ice, sir,” Bill pointed out. “We can stop and gather water, then separate the O₂ from that. The engineers also improved on the blaged-up system for extraction from a gas giant. So we can do that if we have to, sir. Without either the evacuation that we experienced or nearly as much penetration by low-density molecules.”

“So I won’t be sounding like Donald Duck?” the CO asked suspiciously.

“You will not be sounding like Donald Duck, sir,” Bill replied, trying not to grin.

“We have an SOP on both, sir,” the XO added. “The big question is capturing the comet.”

“I suggest capturing a small one, sir,” Bill said dryly. “And with the new extraction systems that got installed, I’m not sure that pumping from a gas giant isn’t the better route. We should be able to do it fast enough and clean enough that we won’t have the hydrogen overpressure problem.”

“Duly noted, Astro,” the CO said. “Comet it is. XO, pressure still good?”

“Nominal loss,” the XO replied. “We should be good for at least twenty days with this loss level.”

“No more than fifteen days out we have to stop for ice,” the CO said. “That one I’m never going to get used to saying. Very well. Astro, course?”

“Anti-spinward at one-one-eight mark dot two, sir,” Weaver replied, pointing. “First star to the right…”

“And straight on to morning. XO, make it so. Warp Four and don’t spare the horses. We got a colony to check out.”

“So what now, Two-Gun?” Sergeant Champion asked over the comm. The team leader of Charlie Second was halfway down the compartment so Berg got it over his implant.

“Technically we’re on stand-down until we clear the grav barrier on the system,” Berg said. “Which Top figures means we’re all sleeping or gaming. But I’m guessing that Top’s gonna have one of his drills before that happens. Which, if we don’t work on corridor protocol, is going to be a cluster-grapp. I know I’m not senior here…”

“Two-Gun, Sergeant Norman, mind if I listen in?” Albert Norman had Bravo team of Second Platoon.

“Booster, gimme all the team leaders and senior team members in the compartment,” Berg said, watching lights go green on his video screen. “Champ just asked what I thought was next. We’re supposed to be bunked down until we clear the system. But Top tends to throw drills at us continuously during the early part of a cruise. What grapps us at first is corridor protocol. When the alarm goes off, everybody can’t be dumping out of their bunks. If you want a suggestion, we should get ahead of him as much as we can. Unass the bunks in the prescribed order, form up as if we’re moving out, then do it over and over again until Top calls an actual drill. Or we can just flake out and follow Top’s lead.”

“I’m for getting ahead of Top if we can,” Sergeant Charles Gardner from Bravo Third said.

“We’re in,” Corwin said. “I remember the first time Top called a drill. Cluster-grapp doesn’t begin to cover it.”

“Any objections?” Berg asked. “Right. We’ll start with boarders. First out of the compartment are the Wyvern teams. You’re in skinsuits. The rest don the vacuum rig. We’ll do it slow at first. Get your teams ready.” He switched frequencies to his own team net. “Smitty, Himes, we’re going to start doing drills. I’ll call the teams. If you’re Wyvern, get into your skins and form up to exit the compartment. If you want a hint, might as well put on skins all the time. They fit under the suits and Top won’t gig you for being in skins under your uniform. Casual SOP on the last cruise was ‘just wear the grapping skins, even if they stink.’ ”

“Got it, Sergeant,” Himes replied. “Should we just change into them, now?”

“Well, I’ve already got mine on,” Berg admitted, grinning at the overhead.

The first attempt was a cluster-grapp. One problem was putting the skinsuits on in the bunks was nearly impossible.

“We need to figure out a better way to don these things,” Berg said, huddling with the other team leaders in the corridor. “I tried getting into one in the bunk and it was grapping impossible.”

“Fall out of the bunks by odd teams?” Corporal Loverin asked. The Team Leader of Charlie Third was pretty junior for the slot in Berg’s opinion. But on reflection Berg realized Loverin had more time in the Corps than he did. “Don them with your buddy’s help?”

“Matching team leaders pair up,” Priester expanded. “So I’d pair with Champs or Lover depending on who was going into skins.”

“Can the teams keep that straight?” Berg asked. “The alarms are going to be going off, Top’s going to be shouting…”

“That’s what drills are for,” Loverin pointed out, grinning. “Let’s try it out.”

“Okay, but we go slow,” Berg said. “Have the skin teams fall out of the compartment, first, then we go to donning suits. We’re going to need to be able to do it fast, though. And eventually we’re going to have to figure out how to do it in the bunks. If we depressurize I don’t want to be trying to get my suit on in vacuum.”

After four tries, they worked out a good method to get the suits on, just in time to hear:

“All hands, stand by for system exit!”

“Okay, that cans it,” Berg said. “Everybody in the bunks.”

“We just got our suits on,” Loverin protested.

“We can lie in the bunks in the suits,” Berg pointed out. “It should be a smooth exit, but, personally, I don’t mind having my suit on for it.”

“What’s this?” the first sergeant said from the forward hatch. “Plotting to take over the ship by EVA, Two-Gun?”

“Just… drilling in suit donning, First Sergeant,” Berg replied after a moment.

“And let me guess whose idea that was,” Top said, looking around the compartment balefully. “How fast are you?”

“Slow, Top,” Berg admitted.

“Not as slow as I’d expected,” the first sergeant admitted. “But climb in your bunks and seal up. Berg, did you cover system exit?”

“Not in any detail, Top,” Berg admitted. “But it was covered in training.”

“And for those of you who don’t recall that five minutes of training,” the first sergeant said, raising his voice. “We’re about to exit the Sol system. There’s a gravitational distortion wave surrounding the system. Why it’s there was covered in training and I won’t cover it again. But it’s like going through a bumpy ride at sea. This one we’ve pretty much got worked out so it should be smooth. If anything untoward happens, however, you just seal your bunks and hunker down. It hasn’t killed us, yet. That’s all.”

“Methinks Top was a bit put out,” Corwin said, grinning.

“Oh, he’ll get us back,” Berg said. “But in the meantime, let’s bunk up.”

“Approaching system disturbance zone,” the pilot reported.

“Slow to normal space drive,” the CO said. “Astro?”

“Getting my readings on the waves, sir,” Bill replied, looking at the newly installed gravitometer. They were really in the outer fringes and he could feel the waves, like strange ripples of power, coursing through his body. Fortunately, they hadn’t stopped farther in. “Entry point should work in one hundred seven seconds, Warp Two Dot Three.”

The Blade had previously discovered that gravity between stars acted in a different way than within the star’s gravity well. At the edge, the two different gravitational forms clashed, creating standing gravitational waves that stretched for millions of kilometers. By timing the waves, it was possible to, in effect, “surf” them. But like any surfing, it took reading the waves just right. Fortunately, because they could be analyzed and were fairly steady state, it was science rather than art.

“Start the countdown,” the CO ordered as a clock on the forward viewscreen came on. “Any worse than usual?”

“Not apparently, sir,” Bill replied, watching the display show the rise and fall of the standing gravity waves. “We’ll have to do the usual jump in warp about halfway through, but it should be a smooth exit. Well, as smooth as it ever is.”

“Whoa,” Sergeant Norman said as the first real wave hit. The drive could be felt through the walls of the bunks and it was apparent it was straining. “What the hell was that?”

“Standing gravitational wave,” Lance Corporal Seeley said. The effect was somewhat nauseating but if it was bothering Seeley it wasn’t apparent.

Norman looked across the compartment towards Lyle’s bunk and was surprised to see the former armorer asleep.

“This happens on every system?” Norman asked.

“Yep,” Seeley said. “And they’re really bad on the bigger stars like A and B class.”

There was a slight increase in the tenor of the drive as it kicked into a higher warp and a sharp feeling of movement where none existed.

“What the pock is going on?” Sergeant Portana asked over the general platoon freq.

“Grav waves,” Sergeant Bergstresser replied shortly. The Filipino armorer was still playing his salsa full blast.

“What de pock is a grab wabe?”

“It’s a made up word in Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky,” Berg replied. “But if you’re attempting to pronounce ‘grav wave’… Look it up.”

“They’re not getting along too well, are they?” Norman said over the internal team freq.

“Portana had better watch out or Two-Gun’s gonna kick his ass,” Seeley agreed.

“This grav thing,” Norman said. “How many times you go through it on the last mission?”

“I think we surveyed something like thirty systems,” Seeley replied. “And that didn’t count some of the other weird shit. This time, at least, we only have to go through it a couple of times. And we shouldn’t be messing with binaries.”

“Binaries are bad, I take it?” Norman asked, chuckling.

“They mention anything about an astrophysics survey, get ready to lose your lunch.”

“Clean system exit,” the XO announced as the waves fell off.

“Course?” the CO said.

“Heading Three-two-five, mark neg dot four,” Weaver said. “That heading has us well away from stars and other known anomalies. Maintain that heading for about two days, then we’ll adjust.”

“Works for me,” the CO said, getting out of his chair. “XO, make it so, then regular movement watch. Secure from quarters.”

“Aye, aye,” the XO said. “Going on a cruise.”

“All Hands, All Hands. System exit complete. Secure from Emergency Quarters.”

“Everybody out of your monkey suits,” Berg said, rolling out of his bunk and starting to strip off his skinsuit. “We’re up for Wyvern simulation in thirty minutes.”

“Thirty grapping days,” Himes muttered. “What the hell are we going to do for thirty grapping days in space?”

“You’ve seen the training schedule,” Berg replied, grinning. “Lots o’ training. Not to mention unscheduled drills, cleaning up the compartment, maintenance on the Wyverns…”

“Don’t forget pre-mission physical,” Corwin added from down the compartment.

“And we all have to go through pre-mission,” Berg added with an evil grin. “You’re not real Space Marines until you’ve gone through pre-mission physical.”

“Are we there, yet?” Smith moaned.

“You’ve been awfully quiet the last couple of days.”

Brooke looked up as Ashley Anderson sat down across from her. The lunchroom was, as always, loud to the point of hearing loss. So the statement was spoken loudly enough for the other girls at the table to hear.

“She has been, hasn’t she?” Clara Knott agreed. The skeletally thin brunette cheerleader had often been accused of being anorexic. Anyone looking at her heaping plate would have been disabused of the notion. Nor was she bulimic; she simply had a metabolism more commonly found in shrews. And somewhat the same personality. “And from the faraway look, there can only be one reason.”

“Has the ice-maiden, like, thawed?” Ashley asked. Like Brooke, she was a long, leggy blonde. Unlike Brooke, she could barely complete a thought. “What are you wearing to Winter Formal?”

“I’m more interested in who Broke is going to the formal with,” Clara said. “Come on, Brooke, give it up. We need a name.”

“I’m not going,” Brooke said, picking at her food.

“What do you mean?” Ashley squealed. “You have to go! You’re a cheerleader for God’s sake! Don’t tell me you don’t have a date!”

“She’s not going because her date’s not around to go,” Craig Elwood said, setting down his tray across from Ashley. “Mind if I sit here?”

“Yes,” Ashley replied, then paused. “Unless you really know something.” Craig was the school’s terminal geek. A member of the physics team and the math team, he was also irrepressible. Despite having spent most of his school years being hammered on by the “names” in the small school system.

“Someone, not naming any names,” Craig said, drawing the words out, “was seen canoodling with a former star of the physics team on Sunday.”

“I was not canoodling,” Brooke snapped. “Whatever that means. And it’s none of your business, Craig!”

“You mean you were just sitting in his truck for three hours?” Craig asked, aghast.

Brooke snarled. “What were you doing, following us?”

“No, but when I went into the theater you were sitting in his truck,” Craig said. “And when I came out of the theater you were still sitting in his truck. If you weren’t canoodling, which is an archaic term for necking, what in the heck were you doing?”

“Whose truck?” Clara asked, fascinated. Brooke almost never dated. She always had a date if she needed one, if there was a party or a dance. But she never dated. And she certainly had never, as far as Clara could figure out, necked with anybody. Well, she’d gotten caught kissing Jeffrey Brodie in the fifth grade. That seemed to have put her off the whole… canoodling thing.

“Eric Bergstresser, okay?” Brooke said, still picking at her food. “And he was also captain of the track team, Craig. So he’s not exactly a geek. And he lettered in football.”

“And he’s in the Marines,” Craig said. “And he got the Navy Cross. And he’s in some super-secret special operations group. And I hear he’s got the life expectancy of a mayfly.”

“What does that mean?” Ashley asked, fascinated. “Wait, you mean The Berg? Tall, dark and dreamy Eric Bergstresser? Not that little twerp Josh, right? Brooke, you wouldn’t date Josh Bergstresser, would you? You wouldn’t, right?”

“Go back to the mayfly thing,” Clara said. “What do you mean the… what you said…”

“Eric’s unit has a high casualty rate,” Brooke said softly. “Very high. I don’t know what he does but they lost most of their Marines on the last mission. Eric was one of the few survivors.”

“He’s probably in a Dreen clean-up unit, then,” Craig said knowingly. “There are outbreaks you never hear about. Special operations black teams clean them up quietly so nobody finds out about it. I didn’t know it was that dangerous, though.”

“And you went and fell for him,” Clara replied. “Well, I can kind of understand that. He sure is cute.”

“Cute?” Ashley squealed, again. “Cute? He’s gorgeous. He’s got those great eyes and those awesome hands and legs that go right up to… Did I mention that really great ass? Where’d you meet him? I thought he’d gone off to… somewhere. College?”

“He’s in the Marines,” Craig said, very slowly and carefully. “He’s in the Marines, Ashley. Do try to keep up.”

“He was in church on Sunday,” Brooke said tightly. “Our families went to supper at Aubry’s. We went out to see a movie, after, and ended up talking instead.” She stood up and grabbed at her tray, half spilling it on the table. “He’s in the Marines and he’s probably not coming back and that’s ALL I WANT TO SAY ABOUT IT!” she ended on a scream, turning and stalking away.

“What just happened?” Ashley asked plaintively. “And what are you wearing to formal, Clara?”

Craig caught up to Brooke as she was trying to open her locker with shaking hands.

“I’m sorry, Brooke,” he said, softly. “I didn’t mean to—”

“You’re a total nerd, you know that,” she said bitterly. “You have no clue how to be a human being.”

“I said I’m sorry,” Craig said. “I really, really am. I didn’t know he meant that much to you, okay? Look, I ran across a link a while back. I’m going to send it to you. I… I don’t know if it will help or not, but it’s all I can think of to say how sorry I am. It was from back during the War on Terror and it’s about… Well, I’ll send it to you, okay? And he’s going to be fine. He’ll be back before you know it.”

“You think you’re so smart, Craig,” Brooke said, finally getting her locker open. “You think you know everything. Well, he’s not in one of the cleaner things. He does something off-world. I think he’s looking for the Dreen or maybe even fighting them in secret. And they lost almost all the Marines last time. So you don’t know what you’re talking about, okay? And just don’t talk to me about it.”

“Okay,” Craig said, sighing. “But I’m going to send you this link, okay? And I think you should look at it. It’s about… It’s called Homeward Bound. Just don’t delete the e-mail, okay?”

“Just go away, Craig.”

When Brooke got home and sat down at her computer, the promised e-mail was there. Craig hadn’t even written anything, there was just a link.

Not sure if it would help or hurt, she clicked on it and watched the flash animation as a choir sang in the background. In moments tears were streaming down her face as she pieced out the lyrics. She began to sob at the refrain:

Bind me not to the pasture, chain me not to the plow.

Set me free to find my calling and I’ll return to you somehow.

By the end of the images she felt wrung out but somehow more peaceful. Eric’s future was in the hands of the Father and nothing that she could say or do would change that. All she could do was pray for his return. And know that if she bound herself to him, that she would have to accept his calling. To be a Marine, to travel to distant places and fight for all she held dear. And maybe, someday, to not come home.

“God,” she whispered. “If you can hold your hand over the whole world, then you must hold it over the galaxy. I don’t know where Eric is right now, but you do. Keep him safe, Lord, please. And let him come home. In Jesus’ Name I pray, amen.”

She realized that she was in love with a Marine who had a pretty good chance of dying and that really seemed like too much burden for a seventeen-year-old. If this was being an adult, she’d prefer not to grow up. But there didn’t seem to be much choice.

“Oh, Jesus Christ!” Eric snarled, turning up the volume in his bunk. He’d dispensed with earbuds. It had become a contest to see who could drown out Portana’s caterwauling.

It didn’t help that he was suffering from the aftereffects of “pre” mission physical. Dr. Chet, the Sasquatchoid multiple specialty M.D. who was the ship’s doctor, was not happy at having to do the physicals en route. Back in Newport News he had an elaborate laboratory capable of twisting every nuance out of the Marines and sailors on the mission. Onboard not only were the quarters far more cramped — an important factor for a man over seven feet tall — but he had a fraction of the equipment he needed. So he appeared to be taking it out on his subjects. Although there was a less vile concoction than the dreaded “pink stuff,” he was using the latter for his MRI brain analysis. His stated rationale was that he had over a hundred and fifty crewmen and over forty Marines to test in less than thirty days. But everybody was pretty sure it was just petty viciousness. With over a hundred sailors and forty something Marines trying not to puke all over the ship, it didn’t seem like it could be anything else.

And the Marines were exhausted. Top had had them drilling day in and day out, on sleep time, off sleep time, for the last two weeks. They’d run repel boarders drill, trained on damage control, trained to rapid deploy with and without Wyverns. They’d used “chill” times, when the ship had to shut down to cool off, to train in their suits outside the hull. The whole platoon had just finished a brutal simulated boarding action that had them running all over the ship, up and down ladders, jumping the hundreds of thresholds on every hatch of the damned boat, and all of it in full battle rattle on top of their suits to simulate death pressure. All the Marines wanted was to get some sleep. And that damned Filipino salsa simply wouldn’t stop!

What really annoyed everyone, besides the fact that the armorer just couldn’t seem to understand the concept of “politeness,” was that the music blasted whether Portana was in his bunk or not. He’d just keep the same ten songs playing, over and over and over again, whether he was in the compartment or down in the armory.

“Two-Gun!” Priester shouted. “For God’s Sake, turn it down! It’s bad enough listening to Portana’s shit, but mixed with metal?”

“I can’t drown him out with buds in!” Berg shouted back. “It’s this or listen to his shit!”

“Fine!” Uribe shouted from across the compartment. “We’ll just all crank it up!”

“Sounds good to me!” Seeley shouted, turning up the rock booming from his bunk. “I’m tired of listening to your damned hip-hop!”

“What the grapp is that?” Captain Blankemeier asked as he opened the hatch to Sherwood Forest. The truncated missile compartment was filled with the most God-awful sound he’d ever heard. It sounded like every style of music ever invented was being blasted at full volume. From…

He hit the intercom to the conn.

“Officer of the Day! Get me the Marine CO! Right. Now!”

“GOD DAMNIT! WHAT THE GRAPPING HELL IS… !”

First Sergeant Powell realized that he was screaming to Marines who couldn’t hear him. Most of them, in fact, seemed to be asleep. It was Third Platoon’s rest period and, as far as he could tell, the Marines were “resting” with the volume turned up to maximum on all their speakers.

As he strode down the compartment the far hatch opened up to reveal the ship’s CO looking about equally furious.

When he got to Berg’s compartment he banged on the memory plastic door.

“TWO-GUN, OPEN THE GRAPPING DOOR!”

The darkened plastic first depolarized then snapped open on the chagrined junior NCO.

“TWO-GUN WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING HERE?”

“SORRY, TOP!” Berg shouted, turning off his own speakers. But that didn’t silence the compartment by any means. “GOD DAMN PORTANA NEVER TURNS HIS DOWN! IT WAS THE ONLY WAY WE COULD GET ANY SLEEP!”

“Compartment announce,” Spectre said coldly, shutting down all the speakers and transferring them to his own voice. “ON YOUR FEET, MARINES! Booster. Keep the speakers shut off from music until I give the okay.”

As half-dressed Marines started spilling into the corridor, the CO looked at the first sergeant.

“First Sergeant Powell?” Spectre said.

“Sir?” Powell replied.

“This is your problem. Fix. It.”

“It’s fixed, sir.”

“Bad day?” Miller asked as First Sergeant Powell collapsed onto his bunk.

“I wish they’d invented hypersleep along with all the rest of this stuff,” the first sergeant said, wincing. “I have thirty-six overgrown children to babysit. Bored, highly-trained, highly-testosteroned children. I’ve drilled them, I’ve run their asses off, I’ve worn them out to the point that it’s wearing me out and they can still make me look like an ass in front of the boat’s CO. I wish I could just wake them up a couple of days out, feed ’em a meal and then drop them on the planet.”

“You think it’s bad in the Marine compartments?” Miller said, chuckling. “Did you hear we lost one of the missile techs?”

“Define lost,” Powell said, sitting up. “Lost as in dead?”

“No, lost as in ‘Hey, has anyone seen Poolson?’ ” Miller replied. “It’s not really something to laugh about. The guy didn’t show up for duty for three days. Nobody would admit they knew where he was.”

“I take it they found him,” Powell said.

“Yeah,” Miller said, grimly. “XO initiated a quiet search. He was strapped to the hypercavitation initiator. One of the cool downs, somebody had put him in his suit and taken him out and space-taped him to it. He’d been out there for three days. They’d hooked up extra O₂ and water, but his waste tank was overflowing.”

“That’s…” Powell said. “I think you’d define that as torture.”

“He apparently was not well liked by some of the crew,” the SEAL said, shrugging. “In sub crews you either get along or… You don’t like the results.”

“They find out who did it?” the first sergeant asked.

“He’s around the bend,” Miller replied. “They just put him in a straitjacket and strapped him into his bunk. Chet checked him out and described him as nonfunctional psychotic. They’ll keep him under wraps till we get back.”

“And the guys that did it to him?”

“Nada,” Miller said, shrugging. “That sort of thing goes on more often than you’d think in the ‘silent service.’ Like I said, you get along or they will convince you to find a new specialty. Or just drive you insane. The bubbleheads play very rough.”

“Well, if he was anything like my new armorer, I can understand their attitude.” Powell sighed. “I just got done with a thirty minute ass-chewing and I’m not sure it’s going to take.”

“Heh,” Miller said, grinning. “I heard about the music tantrum. You get one on every cruise, don’t you? Well, it’s not like the ops sergeant on the last cruise, is it? Sure, you could replace him with Lurch, but then you’d be out a shooter and have him freer to piss people off.” He rubbed his bald head in thought, then shrugged.

“I never had quite that sort of problem child, but a friend of mine did,” Miller mused. “Army, mind you. Anybody like that on the Teams we’d just send back to the regular Navy to chip paint. What he’d do is just catalogue his problem child’s sins of the previous day. Supply sergeant, if I remember correctly. Then the next morning — every morning, mind you — he’d call him in and give him a thirty minute ass-chewing. There was something about reading the overnight signals in there to get up to full wroth, but that’s not available to you…”

“I can read the boat’s XO’s training concepts,” the first sergeant said dryly. “That usually gets me into a pretty good frenzy.”

“That’s the ticket,” the SEAL said with a grin. “Get a good full head of steam, then blow it off on the problem child.”

“Every morning?” Powell said, grinning back. “I suppose I could do that. Seems like a lot of trouble, though.”

“I dunno,” Miller replied, shrugging. “Is he salvageable?”

“That is what I’m going to have to find out,” the first sergeant admitted. “He knows his shit. But he just gets off on pissing people off.”

“Well, there’s always the initiator option,” the SEAL pointed out.

“I’ll keep that in mind.”