Battlespace (15 page)

Which was why the civilians were along, taking up the room and the consumables of four Marines.

What was needed, Warhurst decided, was a training program to give Marines the skills necessary to check out exoarcheological sites and technology. Those could become new NEC skills, like electronics maintenance, TAV pilot, or weapons system specialist/plasma gun.

But they would still be Marine
riflemen
, first and foremost.

Quarterdeck
UFR/USS
Chapultepec
1444 hours, GMT (Shipboard time)

By long-standing tradition, the place where you came aboard on any naval vessel was designated the quarterdeck, an area designated by the commanding officer for the conduct of official functions, and as the station manned by the officer of the deck. In the days of the ancient Greeks and Romans, it was the site of a shrine to the gods watching over the ship, and religious ceremonies were held there.

Twenty-five hundred years later, the quarterdeck was still a place of ritualistic ceremony. Military personnel coming on board were expected to salute the ensign aft, then the Officer of the Deck, requesting permission to come onboard.

On a starship, however, with the quarterdeck in zero-G, certain adjustments had to be made. Coming aboard was still something of a ceremony, but often less than decorous.

Navy Lieutenant Eric Walther Boyce had the duty. He was wearing Velcro booties—shoes were prohibited in the zero-G areas of the ship, even for full-dress occasions—which kept him anchored to the deck. A Marine lieutenant floated headfirst through the open hatch. Holding himself stiff, he saluted the American flag painted on the quarterdeck's aft bulkhead, then rotated slightly and saluted Boyce. “Permission to come onboard, sir.”

Boyce returned the salute. Technically, Navy personnel did not salute inside, but a special case was made for the quarterdeck. “Granted. Palm here.”

The Marine placed his palm on the clip PAD screen Boyce held out for him. A screen at the OOD station lit up with the man's name, rank, and other ID data, along with a partial copy of his orders.

“Welcome aboard, Lieutenant Gansen. You're commanding Alpha/1/1?”

“Thank you, sir. That's right.”

“Link into the ship's guide. The voice will lead you to your hab deck.”

“Right. Uh…listen. They nabbed me as baby-sitter dirt-side. I have some special guests in tow.” He extended a data card to Boyce. “Four civilians, with the corporate team.”

Boyce plugged the card into his board and scanned the ID data. “Franz. Castello. Valle. Lymon. Very well. Bring them aboard.”

“They don't have their space legs yet, sir. It might be best to bounce 'em onboard.”

Boyce grinned. “I'll call a couple of ratings to lend a hand.”

Minutes later, with two Navy enlisted men positioned farther down the corridors leading into
Chapultepec
's bowels,
Boyce positioned himself above the open hatch and called out, “Right, Xing! Start passing 'em along!”

“Aye aye, sir!” a voice called up the long tunnel of the shuttle docking tube. “On the way!”

Seconds passed. Then a woman emerged from the hatch, doubled into a tuck, her knees against her chest, her arms folded around her legs. She was held in that position by a light harness of broad, plastic straps. Boyce caught her lightly, arresting her zero-G flight with practiced ease.

“Name?” Boyce asked.

“Cynthia Lymon. PanTerra military liaison.”

“Welcome aboard, ma'am.”

Boyce pivoted, then gave her a hard shove, sending her flying through an open companionway leading off at right angles to the entry hatch. He turned back in time to catch the next passenger, an older man.

“I must protest this treatment, damn it! It is most undignified!”

“Sorry, sir,” Boyce said. “Your name?”

“Dr. Paul Randolph Franz! Get me out of this contraption!”

“In just a minute, sir,” Boyce told him, before giving him a shove down the passageway after Lymon. The next passenger to sail onboard was Dr. Vitorrio Castello, and after that Dr. Marie Valle. The harness arrangement had been found to be an effective way to keep someone new to weightlessness from flailing about and injuring themselves or someone else. But as Franz had said, it was not a dignified means of coming onboard.

“I'd better go find the good doctor and help him settle in,” Boyce said. “And maybe try to soothe some ruffled feathers.”

“Good luck, Lieutenant. He did
not
look pleased.”

“You know what? I could give a shit. Sir.” He saluted. “By your leave?”

“Carry on, Lieutenant.”

And then the first of the enlisted FNGs began coming aboard. They'd had some zero-G training already so they weren't tucked into ball harness, but they were clumsy and awkward and tended to bump into bulkheads.

And Boyce had his hands full getting them squared away.

It was going to be, he thought, an interesting deployment.

Warhurst's Office
UFR/USS
Chapultepec
1725 hours, GMT (Shipboard time)

Chalker, his personnel assistant, stepped into the room. “Major? Staff Sergeant Houston here to see you, sir.”

“Send him in.”

Houston stepped through the hatch and came to attention. The orderly slipped out, closing the door behind him.

“You wanted to see me, Staff Sergeant?”

“Yes, sir. Thank you for your time.”

“Make it brief.”

“Aye aye, sir. Uh…I understand…I mean, the scuttlebutt is….”

“Spit it out, Staff Sergeant.”

“Sir. I want to stay in the Corps. Sir.”

Warhurst was startled. “Oh? I thought you couldn't wait to get out.”

“I've changed my mind, sir.”

Warhurst leaned back in his seat. “At ease, Houston. Tell me more.”

“Well, I heard that I was going to be given a choice at my mast…get busted or get out.”

The intelligence network of the enlisted Marines, Warhurst thought, was nothing short of amazing. They seemed to know what was going to happen long before the brass even made up its mind.

“It's hardly proper to discuss your mast with your commanding officer before the fact, Staff Sergeant.”

“No, sir. I just…I just wanted you to know ahead of time. It'll save time and bother all around. Sir.”

“I see.” Warhurst considered the man for a moment. He was a good Marine, a veteran of Ishtar. He didn't want to lose him. “What made you change your mind?”

“It's Earth, sir. The place is crazy.”

Warhurst smiled. “That's nothing new.”

“No, I mean it's really crazy. I've been using the local network to link in with the global Net, y'know?”

“Go on.”

“It's like I'm a stranger, sir. I don't get the jokes. I don't understand the politics. The vidstreams and sensory movies just leave me cold. I don't understand the plots and story lines, if there are any. And the people, the civilians, especially, look at me like I was some kind of freak.”

“You've just been out of the cultural mainstream a while, Sergeant. You'd adapt.”

“Maybe. I don't think I'd want to become one of them. At least here I know what the score is.”

“Well, I can appreciate your problem. I find I don't fit in either. But then, I'm a career Marine.”

“I'm beginning to think the same thing about myself, sir.” He hesitated. “Question, sir?”

“Go on.”

“What'll happen when you retire, sir? When you
have
to get out? I've been thinking about that a lot, lately, and it kind of scares me.”

Warhurst shook his head. “I don't know, Sergeant. I don't think any of us know.”

“It's like we're on a one-way trip into the future. Each time we come back, things are weirder, more fucked up. I just wonder where it'll all end, y'know?”

“It'll be interesting to watch things develop.” Warhurst got
up from behind his desk, walked to the mess niche in the bulkhead, and punched himself a cup of coffee. The office was tiny, little more than a closet with delusions of grandeur, and luxuries like the coffee mess had to be tucked out of the way in creative, space-saving ways. “Coffee, Staff Sergeant?”

“No, sir. Thank you, sir.”

He took the coffee and returned to his desk. “Tell me something, Wes.”

“Yes, sir?”

“What's your take on the newbie Marines coming aboard, the replacements? It occurs to me that they're in much the same position we are, coming into an alien culture. Those of us who were at Ishtar are all twenty years out of step…or, rather, they're twenty years out of step with us. Have you talked with them much?”

“Some. Most of the guys and gals are keeping their distance from the FNGs, until they take their measure, if you know what I mean, sir. But there's been some mixing. The ship's so damned crowded, there's bound to be.”

“Any problems?”

“None to speak of, sir. Thing is, the FNGs might be from Earth's current culture, but they have been through boot camp. That changes a lot. They speak the same language, I guess you could say.”

“Meaning they say ‘hatch' instead of ‘door.' I was wondering if there were communications problems.”

“A few, sir. But we're learning from them, and they're learning from us.” He grinned. “Like, there's a new word that means to move out or get moving fast.
Vamming
. Like ‘Let's vam outta here.'”

“Vam, huh?”

“Yes, sir. One of the guys says he thinks it's from a Spanish word.
Vamanos
.”

“Could be. Spanishisms have been slipping into American slang for quite a while, now. A couple of centuries ago, it was
vamoose
. Same word.”

“Never heard that one, sir.”

“You'd need to be a student of twentieth-century westerns, Sergeant.”

“Twentieth-century what, sir?”

“Never mind. Not important.” He took a sip from his coffee. “Very well, Staff Sergeant. I'll put a hold on processing your records. You will still stand mast this Friday.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

“Aye aye, sir! And…and thank you, sir. It's like being home.”

Like being home.
Warhurst thought about those words for a long time after Houston left.

Ramsey's Office
UFR/USS
Chapultepec
2112 hours, GMT (Shipboard time)

The command for a special noumenal conference came while Ramsey was already on the Net, reviewing the schedule for bringing onboard the food, ammunition, and other expendables an MIEU required for an extended campaign over eight light-years from home. He heard the chime in his mind and saw the announcement scrolling down the side of his visual field. It was Brigadier General Cornell Dominick, SPACCOM's liaison with the Joint Chiefs.
What the hell is it now
, he asked himself, before settling back in his recliner and thought-clicking to receive.

“Hello, General,” Dominick said. The man appeared in Ramsey's mind's eye in his usual Army dress uniform, one
heavy with braid and heavier by far with the medals for a dozen different campaigns and wars fought over the past thirty years. “Congratulations on your star.”

“Thank you, General. What can I do for you?” Surely the JCS did not bother itself over the social conventions attendant to a promotion.

“This is not entirely a social link-up, General. There's been a slight change in the command organization for Battlespace.”

Ramsey suppressed the shudder he felt at that announcement. That people in Washington were still tinkering with the MIEU's organization and orders even at this late date was not a particular surprise. But what had they done that was momentous enough to require Dominick's personal call?

“Don't worry, Tom. You're not being replaced as COMIEU. But overall mission command—and responsibility—will rest with a supreme command constellation. It was felt that it was unfair to burden you with both running the MIEU
and
the strategy of the overall mission.”

“It's a little late in the day to be swapping billets and chain of command around, don't you think, General?”

“This comes straight from the Joint Chiefs, Tom. You can, if you wish, withdraw from the mission without prejudice. But if you go, it's as COMIEU, not as mission commander.”

Ramsey digested this. In the Ishtar deployment, he'd been commanding officer of the Marines while General King had been CO of the entire mission. It had made sense to do things that way, despite the unfortunate outcome with King personally. But they'd told him this time he was double-hatting it, commanding the Marine element and jointly commanding the strategy for the entire operation with Admiral Don Harris.

“General, if my service has not been of—”

“That's not it at all,” Dominick said, interrupting. “This is not to be construed as criticism of you personally. Let's just say that there are…political considerations.”

“‘Political considerations.' What political considerations?”

“The Joint Chiefs…and the President as well…are concerned about the magnitude of this operation, about how seriously things could go wrong for our whole planet if you fail. It was felt that concentrating so much responsibility with one man would be a mistake.”

“I…see. And who's the lucky bastard going to be?”

“Me, actually.”

Ramsey was startled. Dominick wasn't a Marine. He was
Army
. Besides, his position as liaison between the Space Command and the Joint Chiefs was sufficiently high-powered enough that it was hard to imagine why he would want to volunteer for a twenty-year-objective mission to Sirius.

“Good God, General,
why
? Why
you
?”