Europa Strike (22 page)

“In any event, I grew up at a time when interest in ancient architecture, in ancient alien visitors, was exploding across Japan. How could I avoid it? By the time I was in university at Kyoto, a great deal of work was being done at Yonaguni. You know of it?”

“Somewhat. An ancient monument of some sort, submerged off the Japanese coast?”

“Exactly. An immense structure submerged since the ending of the last Ice Age, at
least
ten thousand years ago, probably more. It was first recognized as anomalous by divers in the 1980s. As we learned what it really was, it became an object of considerable national pride, you see. The Ancients had visited
us
as well as Egypt and Peru, Lebanon and Iraq. I learned to dive expressly to visit the monument. Later I joined the Navy and became an expert in small submersibles. I am afraid my father—how do you say it?—
pulled strings
to get me into the JDF programs I wanted.

“In the years since I have done research both on the moon and on Mars, at Cydonia and in Planitia Utopia. When they needed a submarine expert to study the Singer phenomenon, I was the logical candidate as Senior Researcher.”

“I see. Excuse me for bringing this up, Doctor, but…you lost a brother in the UN War, didn't you?”

Ishiwara's face again became an unreadable mask. “Yukio Ishiwara. One of the Six Eagles. A hero in my land.”

“He died attacking an American space station, before Japan changed sides and came in with us against the UN. How do you feel about working with Americans, Dr. Ishiwara?”

“That was…a long time ago. I tend not to be political in my thinking, Major. Or in my attitude toward others.”

“And yet we have a political situation here. Who will make first contact with living extraterrestrials? Us? Or the Chinese? No, I should restate that…because
you
, Dr. Ishiwara, will be in a position to lead that contact no matter who wins this fight. If the Chinese take over this facility, I imagine they will value your expertise. You could easily end up working for them.”

“Is that why you have denied us access to the Manta submersibles? To block us if we are forced to work for your enemy?”

“That's part of it. We were also looking at using their electronic components, if need be, as spares. And…they may have suffered some damage in the battle. I have our SEALs checking them over now, to make sure their hulls are tight, their systems intact.

“But I'll tell you this frankly, Doctor. If there's a danger that they're going to overrun this facility, or if we're forced to surrender, I
will
destroy both Mantas to keep them from falling into enemy hands.”

“I…see.”

“And how about you? Are you political enough to see the dangers of letting the Chinese make first contact with a technologically advanced civilization?”

“First of all, we still don't know that the Singer represents such a civilization. We understand very little about it at all. I'll also say, frankly, that I fear that the Chinese intend to
force
contact with an intelligence which, so far, has remained completely aloof. That could have devastating consequences, for all of us. We could be like insects attempting to awaken a slumbering and ill-tempered man.

“However, I wouldn't care to guess
what
I would do with a gun pressed to my head. Would any man? Would you?”

“I have my duty, Doctor. And my orders.”

“And I have my duty to my science. To knowledge, to an understanding of where we came from and who we are. It is clear we have a heritage, Major, one set somewhere among the stars, and I intend to learn what that heritage is, one way or another.” He cocked his head to one side, looking almost mischievous. “Perhaps you should set one of your Marines as a guard over me, Major. To destroy
me
as you plan to destroy the Mantas.”

“I don't think that will be necessary.” Although his orders did mention that very possibility, damn them. How far could he go along with that level of bureaucratic paranoia? “In any case, there's no guarantee the Chinese would require your services. I'm sure they have their own scientific team over there, and a mistrust of anyone working with the CWS.”

“Quite true.”

“Tell me, Doctor. Just how would you assess the threat of our generating a bad response from our friends downstairs? I have more than enough to worry about with the Chinese knocking at our door, without also being concerned about aliens dropping in.”

“I feel,” Ishiwara said quietly, “like one of the mice in the walls. There is something extraordinarily large, extraordinarily powerful down there. It knows we're here, but it hasn't deigned to notice us…yet.

“And we may not like it when it does.”

 

Crater floor

Ice Station Zebra, Europa

1310 hours Zulu

 

“Mission control!” Lucky shouted. “We have separation!”

The platoon channel crackled with laughter, cheers and catcalls. “Whoa!” Corporal Jesus Garcia's voice called above the rest. “Fifteen point two one meters for Lissa, sixteen point oh five meters for Woj! A new world's record!”

BJ Campanelli laughed. “Well, a record for
this
world, anyway!”

“Whaddaya mean,
this
world, BJ?” Lance Corporal Richard Wojak replied, laughing as he picked himself up off the ice. “You think we could do this on Earth, or any other world?”

“Absodamnlutely,” Corporal Lissa Cartwright added. “This has got to be the best ice dancing anywhere in the universe!”

There were ten of them—“volunteers,” in a you-you-you-and-you way—for a working party on the surface well south of the landing deck. Sergeant Major Kaminski had set them to welding together an A-frame scratched together out of struts taken from the wrecked bug, then using plasma torches to melt the ice so that they could raise the frame and have it freeze into an upright position. The work was well under way when Kaminski and Kuklok had retired back to the E-DARES facility to work out some problem or other with the Marine team working on the crater rim to the southwest, leaving the working party under the supervision of Second Platoon's Gunnery Sergeant Pope.

The A-frame was up, though, in quicker time than anyone had guessed, which left ten Marines more or less on their own for a half hour or so—too short a time to bother hopping it back to the E-DARES and unsuiting, too short a time to do much of anything, in fact, but amuse themselves on the ice.

The dance competition was the result.

Lucky walked over to BJ and executed a stiff half-bow—the best he could do in his SC-swaddled suit. “May I have the honor of this dance, BJ?”

“I thought you'd never ask!” She extended her right glove and he took it, feeling the slight, invisible shove from the magnetic field enveloping her suit. He gave her arm a tug, pulling her against him, torso to torso.

The superconductor weave in the outer cloth layer of their Mark IIB suits held an electrical charge; its endless circulation around the suit generated a fairly strong magnetic field, polarized outside to inside with the positive charge out—their main protection against the proton flux that made up the majority of Europa's background radiation. As they pulled themselves together, forcing their suits into close contact, the like charges repelled one another, the pressure becoming stronger the more tightly they pulled themselves together.

Standing together, they took a clumsy step and kickoff in opposite directions on the ice, moving into a tight, counterclockwise spin.

In the hours since the battle, the portions of the crater surface partly melted by the bombardment had refrozen. Several areas, reduced to ice mush by the shock waves from the mass-driven impacts, had refrozen to a mirrorlike smoothness, made slick by the radiation-induced dissociation of the surface ice into a sheen of water and hydrogen peroxide. Walking was so tricky in some areas that safety lines had been set up to assist the progress of people moving about on the crater floor, checking damage, retrieving bodies, or engaged in other working party evolutions.

They'd found a particularly large stretch of glass-smooth ice south of the landing field, perfect for an impromptu round of what BJ had called Fun with Physics.

They clung to one another's suits, gripping the carry handles set into each side of their PLSS backpacks, and continued to step and kick in unison, increasing the speed of their spin. Lucky's visor was pressed against BJ's, and he could see her laughing features, murky behind the dark polarization of their helmets, centimeters from his own. The flat, icy background whipped past behind her head, the rotations marked off by the small, inner gasp of surprise that occurred each time the sun or the swollen immensity of Jupiter swung rapidly across the sky. It was almost in full phase now, with the sun in the opposite sky low in the west. Their shadows stretched out across the ice, whipping across the mirrored surface like a long, black blade.

“Ready!” BJ said over the company channel. “Ten…nine…eight…”

“Seven…six…five…four…” He chanted the countdown with her, as it was echoed by the Marines standing in a broad, loose circle around the two of them. They pulled themselves even closer as they spun, battling the powerful, magnetic repulsion between them.

“Three…two…one…
release!
”

They let go of one another at the same instant. The repulsion of their suit shields, augmented by the centrifugal force of their spin, blasted them apart.

On that slick surface, they rocketed back from one another in opposite directions, both losing their balance and falling onto the ice, but slowly enough to do no damage. Lucky landed on his backside and began spinning as he slid rapidly across the ice. Two of the watching Marines stepped aside to let him sail past. Then he hit a patch of rougher ice, felt a cobblestone kind of vibration through the seat of his suit, and quickly came to a stop.

Jesus Garcia had stepped up to the point where Lucky and BJ had parted company and faced first him, then BJ, using his suit's laser rangefinder to measure the distance traveled. “All right!” he exclaimed. “Sixteen point one one meters for Beej…and Lucky gets a big sixteen point two one meters…and another new record!”

“Way to go, Lucky!” Coughlin said, shouting above the cheers. He helped Lucky to his feet, then clapped him on the helmet. “Not bad for doin' it with a real girl, huh?”

“Screw you, Cog!” but he laughed as he said it. The fact that he preferred simulated sex to the real thing was the subject of endless jabs and jibes within the platoon, but he was good-natured about it. And it wasn't that he didn't like the real thing.

“Aw, lay off him, Cog,” BJ said. “The poor boy's just confused. He'll get his priorities straight one of these days.”

“Yeah,” Lucky said. “You wanna help straighten me out, BJ?”

“In your dreams!”

“Ha! Which is exactly what I do with virtual sex! In my dreams, and
any
time I want it, any
way
I want it!”

“What the
hell
do you people think you're doing?” The voice was Sergeant Major Kaminski's. He strode into the circle, then planted himself there, a glowering giant, fists on hips. “Leave you jerk-offs alone for five minutes, and what happens?”

“C'mon, Ski, they weren't doing any—” Gunnery Sergeant Pope began.

“You people were goddamn screwing off in an environment where one wrong step will get you
dead!
” Kaminski shouted. “My God! The Skipper links in through Campanelli's helmet camera, and what does he get? A point-blank bellyful of Leckie's face! It's enough to turn your stomach!”

“It was my responsibility,” Pope said.

“Yeah, you're right there, mister. You're on report. You're
all
on report. All of you, gather up your shit and fall in. We're marching back to the barracks.”

A chorus of groans sounded over the comm channel. Marching on Europa was slow, tedious, and prone to embarrassing falls. The order amounted to administrative discipline.

As Lucky was picking up some of the welding gear, he found himself near Campanelli. He chinned in a private channel request.

“Hey,” he said when she acknowledged. “Thanks for the dance.”

“Anytime, Lucky.”

“I could use one of those drinks now.”

She laughed. “I'm not sure Warhorse is gonna cut us any slack. But as soon as we're back on Earth…”

Back on Earth. Lucky turned and looked up at the grossly swollen surprise of Jupiter, low in the east. A tiny red sphere was transiting the gas giant's face, chasing its own round, black shadow—Io.

Kaminski's sudden appearance had been like a dash of ice water in the face, a sharp reawakening to reality. For a while there, the skylarking had pushed the sheer alienness of this place back, held it at bay. It was amazing, he thought, what humans could learn to accept as normal, given even a little time and adaptability. Even with space suits, even with Jupiter in the sky, the ten of them had forgotten for a moment where they were.

Maybe that was an indication of just how much they
didn't
want to be there. Now it all came back. Damn…why did Tone have to buy it?

“My God,” Lucky said. “I hate this place.”

He'd forgotten the private channel was still open. “Welcome to Bumfuq,” BJ told him.

20
OCTOBER
2067

CO's Office, E-DARES Facility

Ice Station Zebra, Europa

0910 hours Zulu

 

Jeff shook his head sadly. “What the hell were you thinking, Gunny? If someone had torn their suit falling on the ice…”

Tom Pope stood at attention, “centered on the hatch” in front of Jeff's desk. “No excuse, sir.”

“Don't give me that Parris Island shit, Gunny! You've been in the Corps—what?—thirteen years?”

“Fourteen, sir.”

“Long enough to know better. Why didn't you stop it?”

Pope's eyebrow arced toward the dark fuzz of his hairline. “Begging the Major's pardon, sir…but I saw no reason to. They'd been working hard, they had some down time. I saw no reason they couldn't have a little fun.”

“‘A little fun.' A
little
fun?” He checked an entry on his PAD display. “Corporal Cartwright had a small hole blown in her suit in the first battle Monday. Her suit had a temporary patch installed on the field. Suppose that make-do had blown while she was screwing around on the ice?”

“Her suit had been checked out by the armorer, sir. I double-checked it myself. If there was a problem with the repair, then she shouldn't have been out there in that suit at all.”

“Agreed. That's not the issue.”

“Then, begging the major's pardon again, I'm not sure I understand what is.”

“The issue is responsible behavior. From the men and women of this company. From the man who was entrusted with their safety. Damn it, in the past three days, we've gone through four attacks. We've lost thirty-four people altogether—thirty-four people! Almost half of our strength! We damned sure can't afford to lose any more, and we
sure
as hell can't lose any to dumb-ass accidents caused by skylarking!”

“Nothing happened, sir.”

“No. Thank God. But, damn it, why were they even on the surface unless it was absolutely necessary? The idea is to keep surface exposure to a minimum. It's not just that I don't want them cracking a visor or tearing a suit and dying up there. I'd like to know they have a chance of retiring from the Corps, living to a ripe old age, and
not
dying of cancer! Or radiation sickness, six months from now.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jeff glared at him for a moment. Tom Pope was a good man. Silver Star, Bronze Star with cluster, three Purple Hearts. He'd fought in Cuba, Mexico, and Russia, and been part of the Marine Recon/SEAL team that had taken down those Brazilian terrorists on the cruise ship in Puerto Rico five years back and disarmed that do-it-yourself nuke they were smuggling into Miami. After that, he'd been at Parris Island, first as an assistant drill instructor, then as a DI, until he'd been accepted for Space Training at Quantico. There was no questioning his bravery…or his intelligence.

He decided to try a different approach.

“Okay, Tom,” he said. “I can't believe you didn't have a reason for standing by and letting that happen. You're too good a gunnery sergeant, too good a Marine to let that sort of skylarking go on without a reason. You care to enlighten me?”

“Sir, I—”

“I don't know the men and women in Second Platoon as well as you do. If I'm missing something, I want to know what it is.”

“It's not something
wrong
, exactly…”

Jeff said nothing but waited for him to continue.

“Look, sir, all I've got to go on here is a hunch, a
feeling
. This place has the company spooked. It has us all spooked. Working and fighting up there, with Jupiter hanging overhead like a big, staring eye—”

“Tom, you're not pulling some sort of canned peaches shit on me here, are you?”

Canned peaches was an old, old tradition in the Corps, a quirk going back at least as far as World War II and the first amtracs used to storm enemy-held beaches. Corps superstition held that it was bad luck to eat canned peaches aboard any Marine vehicle, especially armor or amphibious vehicles. Marines who'd found peaches in their rations had always assiduously traded them to members of the other services—Navy or Army—in order to avoid mechanical breakdown.

Superstition. But the business of war—and the ongoing uncertainty of survival—tended to feed superstition like gasoline feeding a fire.

“No, sir,” Tom replied. “It's not like that at all. It's…I guess it's just that this place is so, so
alien
.”

“My point exactly.”

“But, well, sir…I've been on Mars. I was stationed there for six months after Space School. You have to wear a suit, but most places, anyway, you can squint your eyes and just about imagine you're standing in a desert back in New Mexico. Sometimes the sky's even blue. And on the Moon, well, that's about as different as a place can be, but on the Near Side, anyway, Earth is right there. All you have to do is look up. If there's trouble, Earth and blue skies are three or four days away—a few hours if it's an emergency and you can grab an A-M shuttle.

“But the view here…my God. It's as strange as the Moon, but more so, with ice instead of gray dust and Jupiter so big and, and—
top-heavy
in the sky, you swear it's gonna fall right off its hook and land in your lap. A day that's three and a half days long, and the only time it's really dark is when the sun is in eclipse behind Jupiter. And then you can still see the dark side of the planet, kind of dim and ghostly like, with the aurora and lightning and stuff. The other moons, shuttling back and forth like beads on a string. And you know that Earth is an ungodly long way away—a week at a steady one G, three or more weeks with a coast phase in the middle.”

“All of which is exactly why I came down on you, on them so hard. This is not a
human
environment.”

“But you know how it is in the Corps, Major. Marines stick up for one another. They pull together,
gung ho
. They'll endure the most godawful hardships and assignments you care to dump on 'em. Privation. Hardship. Crowding. Combat. All of that just makes 'em closer, y'know what I mean?

“I guess what I'm trying to say, sir, is that they need to relax with each other sometimes. Cut loose. Skylark. Losing this many people shook 'em pretty bad, especially right after that first battle, when we lost so many. Giving 'em some time to unwind, especially without gold braid breathing down their necks—it helps morale. Sir.”

“I see.”

“The company…they're good people, sir. But they're facing a strange kind of lonely desperation out here. Seven hundred million klicks from home, in an alien environment that will kill them in an instant if they get careless, yeah…and an enemy that's whittling them down now a few at a time. I think they're just trying to hang on to their sanity, sir, whatever is left of it, by importing a little bit of home. For Marines, that means some down time away from supervision, a chance to play.”

“We're in one hell of a playground.”

“That we are, sir. But by making it a playground, they're humanizing it, making it home. You see my point, sir?”

“I think maybe I do.”

“You know, we've been talking about intelligence a lot. Bull sessions after taps and on watch, that sort of thing. You know that Singer everyone's talking about?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the word in the squad bay, sir, is that that thing can't be intelligent. All it does is sit in the deep ocean…singing. It doesn't
play
. And play may be the one thing that differentiates intelligent life from every other kind of critter in the universe.”

“A profound thought, Tom. But we still have the problem of maintaining good order and discipline. What do you recommend?”

“Sir?”

“I've got a problem here, Gunnery Sergeant. Ten men and women skylarking while on a work detail, risking their lives, no less, playing games on the ice. And a platoon leader who should have known better and put a stop to it. What do you recommend I do about it?”

Tom pressed his lips together for a moment. “Sir, the Marines involved aren't to blame. I am. As you say, I should have stopped it. Frankly, I wouldn't want to squelch any behavior that smacked of high spirits.”

“I agree. But I can't let it slide with a warning.”

“No, sir. But you
could
put all the blame on me. That…might have one unfortunate side effect. The Marines involved might think you're a damned son of a bitch. Sir. On the other hand, I can't think of a better way to pull them together.”

Jeff sighed. “Sometimes I think half of leadership is making the men hate you enough to pull together and get the job done.”

“I also suggest that you keep them busy. Too much time to just sit and think makes men brood.”

“Agreed. Kaminski's cannon ought to take care of that.”

“And digging all of those goddamn holes. Do you really think that's going to help with the bombardments, sir?”

“It should. Earth HQ suggested it. Melting lots of holes in star and circle patterns
should
dampen surface shock waves by quite a bit.”

“Well, I imagine we'll find out later today. Papa Romeo's been pretty regular with his deliveries.”

Papa Romeo Charlie
was the Marine pet name for the
Star Mountain
, which changed orbit to bombard the base just before each PRC attack..

“Unfortunately, you're right,” Jeff replied. All of the attacks since Monday's first big push had been relatively low scale and minor, designed to wear the Marine defenders down rather than overrun the base completely. There were two landers out there now, the first one, to the west, and a second that had touched down to the south. Others had come and gone in the past three days, but those two had remained behind as advance bases or OPs. Chinese troops lurked in the chaotic terrain south and east of the base, sniping with laser rifles and Type 80s when they had the chance. The Marines had learned to be
very
careful when moving anywhere along the crater rim.

“Very well,” Jeff said, deciding. “I'm pulling one of your rockers, Tom. You are hereby reduced in rank to staff sergeant.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“And I'm turning your platoon over to Staff Sergeant Campanelli, who I am promoting to acting gunnery sergeant.”

“A good choice, sir. She's sharp. A good Marine.”

“I know. I want to recognize her role in spotting the incoming lander the other day, getting a warning back to us,
and
in killing that tank with her lobber. You think she's up to bossing a platoon?”

“I think so, sir.”

“You're her 2IC now, Tom. Help her out.”

“Aye, aye, sir.”

“Dismissed.”

He was gone.

Jeff stared at the bulkhead for a long moment. He wasn't entirely happy with his decision, but it was the best he could find. Tom Pope was a good Marine. In his own mind, at least, Jeff thought of the demotion as strictly probationary; Pope would have that rocker back inside of six months.

The leadership of the platoon was another matter. He didn't like changing horses in midcrossing. The makeup, the attitudes, the
politics
of any platoon were complex enough without the CO coming in and scrambling things. And keeping Tom as second-in-command might easily backfire. If this was Earth, Jeff would have arranged for Tom's transfer to another unit, just so he wouldn't be following in the unit he'd once led.

It was damned hard keeping rank and leadership positions balanced when there was no outside manpower pool to draw on. Ever since the first Marine unit had been deployed outside Earth's atmosphere, there'd been a serious problem in units becoming top-heavy with rank. Because promotions from private to private first class and from PFC to lance corporal were largely automatic, given time in grade, no Marine left space training as less than an E3—lance corporal. As a result, units deployed to space duty tended toward a preponderance of NCOs—corporals, sergeants, staff sergeants, gunnery sergeants. It was as bad as the Army Special Forces, where you couldn't even apply for training unless you were a noncom with four years behind you.

Second Platoon had boosted with only one gunnery sergeant, however, which made it necessary to promote someone else to fill the platoon leader slot. Campanelli was the logical choice. She had enough time in grade for promotion and had already passed the necessary quals Earthside. A field promotion would need confirmation, but that would follow almost automatically with his recommendation.

The problem was how the platoon was going to take this. Hell, Campanelli was one of the ten Marines who'd been skylarking on the ice; in a way, he was rewarding her for that—not the message he wanted to send at all. He'd get around that by including another field promotion in the round. Lucky Leckie's performance on the crater rim Monday also demanded special recognition.

The real question, then, was how Second Platoon would take the reshuffling. On the one hand, his decision might be seen as interference, as micro management of a well-tuned platoon, and bad for morale. But to ignore the incident would be bad for discipline.

Damned if you do, damned if you don't
. He decided he needed to have another chat with Chesty. They didn't teach you these things in OCS.

His thoughts were jolted by the sudden shock of an alarm.

 

Squad Bay, E-DARES Facility

Ice Station Zebra, Europa

0942 hours Zulu

 

They were fully suited up except for gloves and helmets. Second Platoon, First section had the “Alert Five,” meaning they were suited and ready to cycle out onto the surface in five minutes. It made card playing a bit clumsy, but there was damned little else to do, sitting for six hours at a stretch waiting for something to happen.