SpecOps (Expeditionary Force Book 2) (26 page)

"The doctors aren't sure. Normal adjustment to
high altitude is several days to a week, the difference here is the atmospheric
pressure is slightly higher than sea level pressure on Earth, there mix of
oxygen is lower. The doctors are concerned that we may be slow to adjust,
because we're taking in actually a greater volume of air with each breath, that
might fool our bodies into not realizing the oxygen deficiency. We will have to
monitor people, and ourselves, for signs of altitude sickness. We already have
people with headaches."

The list of people with headaches might include me.
Since our battle with the Thuranin destroyer squadron, I had not been sleeping
well, nor sleeping enough, there had been too much to do, and too much to worry
about. One thing I was hoping for on Newark was that, with nothing much to do
but remain concealed and wait for Skippy to fix the ship, we would have plenty
of time to catch up on sleep. Except Chang said we'd need to adjust to sleeping
in higher gravity. Great. "What else have we learned so far?" I
asked.

"We do have news that would be good," Chang
said, "except that it is useless to us. The life on Newark would be edible
to humans, if there was anything here to eat." He nudged a low-growing
shrub with a boot. "The sugars and proteins that make up plants on Newark
can be digested by humans. Unfortunately, all we've found so far is grass, some
shrubs, and a sort of lichen growing on the rocks. No land animal life, other
than microscopic organisms in the soil. In the stream, there are tiny things
like water insects, shrimp, and a sort of fish, nothing larger than a few
millimeters. Nothing we could potentially eat. Our science team," he
pointed to a group further up the canyon, up to their knees in the frigid
water, "is enjoying this immensely, even the people who are not biologists
are pitching in to collect samples."

I could see Dr. Venkman, the science team leader and
an astrophysicist, bending down to carefully scoop something out of the water.
She looked like she had just found a gold nugget, and she was excitedly
gesturing to the others. Dr. Zheng, the biologist, was actually kneeling in the
stream, which had to be freezing cold. She was saying something to Venkman,
with a look of rapturous joy across her face. A new biosphere for Zheng to
explore, and she was the first human biologist to examine it. And the first
human biologist to have access to Thuranin technology. She, for one of us, was
thrilled to be on Newark.

"It's great they are having fun, have they done
anything useful? Except, they did already determine our biology is compatible
with the native life." I was intrigued. "How did they do that so
quickly?"

"They used a Thuranin scanner that is designed to
do just that; tell the Thuranin whether a planet's organisms are compatible
with their own. Since human and Thuranin biology both use the same basic types
of sugars and proteins, it was simple. And the science team has helped us
validate that the caverns are suitable for us, you'll see, we've explored two
major caverns here," he pointed to two caves. One had a large, arched
opening, the other cave's entrance was narrow and tall.

The extra gravity was weighing me down already. It was
damp, chilly, with dark gray clouds overhead, and it had just started to rain.
This was going to be our home, for months. Fantastic. “Let’s get inside,” I
suggested.

Skippy made contact, of course, at 0224 hours on our
sixth day on Newark. He had told me it would take five days for the missile to
deliver our end of the microwormhole, and I had waited anxiously for a signal
from him all the previous day. Anything could have gone wrong up there, if
Skippy didn't contact us, we would be stranded on Newark, and never know what
had happened to the
Flying Dutchman
. After sitting up waiting for a
signal on my zPhone, until well after midnight, I finally laid down on my cot
and went to sleep. Skippy's muffled voice came out of the zPhone under the
rolled-up jacket I was using as a pillow. "Ugh," I pulled the phone
out, glancing at the time code in the upper right corner, "hi,
Skippy," I whispered.

"Hey, Joe!" He shouted.

"Skippy!" I said in a harsh whisper.
"People are trying to sleep here. Everything Ok up there?"

"Oh, sure, Joe, everything is wonderful. I'll
tell you all about it. First, I-"

"Great. Everything is wonderful, so this can wait
until morning, right? I'll talk to you then," I said through a
jaw-stretching yawn.

"What? I want to talk-"

"Good night, Skippy. This biological trashbag
needs sleep."

In the morning, Skippy was initially peeved at me,
then he quickly cheered up. The missile had arrived on time the previous day,
then Skippy had to maneuver it into position, release the microwormhole and
test it. The
Flower
, with the two dropships, had arrived safely back at
the
Dutchman
, and Skippy was busy taking the ship apart. He was extra
chatty after being out of contact, and he wanted to see everything. After a
quick breakfast, I gave him a tour of the caverns. Major Simms was in the back
of the main cavern, still getting our small mountain of supplies unpacked.

"Good morning, Skippy," she said. "What
do you think of our beautiful new home away from home?"

"Oh, it looks great, you did a great job, looks
very cozy," Skippy said. "Major Tammy, are you sure you want to trust
Joe in a cavern you fixed up so nicely? He's not the best houseguest, there
have been incidents."

"Ha!" I laughed. "Like what?"

"How about the time you thought your neighbor had
a solid gold toilet, and it turned out you peed in the guy's tuba?"

"Skippy!" I laughed. "That never
happened," I explained to Simms, who didn't look entirely convinced.

Skippy snorted. "Oh, sure, if you say so, Joe.
That guy's still mad. You need to remember, tequila is not your friend."

I sighed. "Ok, maybe it did happen, in my
defense, there was a
lot
of tequila involved, I don't remember that day
at all." As far as I know, the whole tuba incident was a story somebody
made up to embarrass me. On the other hand, everyone in my hometown knows that
story, so maybe there was some truth to it. “There are no tubas down here,
Skippy, I think we’re safe.”

“Hmmm,” he said, “might be best to set up a litter box
for you, just in case.”

Simms had done an outstanding job of getting two
caverns ready for human occupation. Cots were set up for sleeping, with tarps
separating groups of cots so people had some privacy. There were tables and
folding chairs, although not enough for everyone to sit down and eat all at the
same time. Lights were attached to the ceiling, each of the two caverns would
be getting a field kitchen; meals would be less fancy than what we had become
used to aboard the
Flying
Dutchman
, but we would not be surviving
entirely on MREs after the first couple days.

Conditions were not harsh, I was not concerned about
survival, or people’s health, even if the planet was chilly, damp and generally
unpleasant. I wasn’t even that concerned about the inevitable boredom. The
science team had plenty to occupy them; studying Newark, and going through the
mountain of data we had collected on the voyage so far. The special forces
would no doubt be using Newark as an opportunity to train in a heavy gravity,
low oxygen environment, and to gain additional experience with powered armor
suits. Keeping the pilots busy would be more of a problem, we hadn’t been able
to bring down any type of slight simulator gear, so they would have to make do
with flight manuals. Some of the pilots, and special forces, had already
volunteered to collect samples for our biologists, I needed to encourage that
spirit of teamwork.

After a mostly decent first night of sleep, when I got
used to my cot, and the heavier gravity, I awoke early. Tiptoeing across the
cavern, carrying my boots, I got a cup of coffee, and went outside to sit on a
rock and put my boots on. It didn’t surprise me at all that Sergeant Adams
appeared silently behind me. “Where are you going, sir?”

Taking a sip of coffee, I said “Nowhere special, Sergeant.
Just up to the rim, so I can get a view of our cozy little canyon here. Hoping
to see a sunrise.” That last seemed unlikely, the sky was mostly clouds, and
from the wet rocks outside the cavern entrance, it had rained again overnight.
The science team was trying to figure a weather forecast from the satellite
data, they weren’t confident of understanding Newark’s climate that well until
we reconnected with Skippy.

“No one goes outside alone, sir. Commander’s orders.”

I had given such an order, through my XO. “Sounds like
a wise commander.”

“Jury’s still out on that one, sir,” she said with a
grin I could barely see in the dim light, “he’s doing Ok so far.”

“You ready?”

She held up one foot, for me to see her boot.
“Always.”

Because Adams had landed with the first wave, on the
very first dropship, she knew her away around. The canyon wall was steep,
especially near the top, without Adams it would have taken me forever to find
my way up to the canyon rim. Someone had scouted a route to the top already, there
was a rope to hold onto for the final climb to the top, it was less steep than
I expected.

There was a glimmer of light on the eastern horizon,
the satellite view from my zPhone screen showed patchy clouds overhead, solid
cloud cover with rain to the west, and slightly less clouds to the east. It was
possible I could see a sunrise, my first morning on Newark. That, I would take
a good sign. “Hey, S-” I began to say.

“Sir?” Adams asked.

“Nothing,” I said, embarrassed. “I was about to ask
Skippy for a weather forecast. It’s automatic by this point.”

She nodded. “I know what you mean. On the ship, I
can’t get away from him. Now, I miss him already.”

“Me too.” We sat silently for a while, watching the
light grow as the local sun approached the horizon. With the increasing light,
I could faintly see figures moving about on the floor of the canyon below us.
The SpecOps team commanders had asked me for permission to run early in the
mornings, I ordered them to skip this first morning, until we could scout the area
on foot in daylight. It didn’t surprise me they had gotten up early anyway, to
exercise in the canyon. Inevitably, some of them were going to climb to the
canyon rim, and the silence would be disturbed. Before I missed the
opportunity, I cleared my throat.
“Can we talk for a minute?”

She turned to look at me, in the predawn darkness, her
face illuminated only by the glow of the unseen sun. “If you are going to tell
me you think I’m cute, I already know that. Also, I would punch you. Sir.”

“Uh,” I said stupidly, not knowing what else to say.

 “Other than that, I could use someone to talk to
also,” she added, saving me further embarrassment.

“Why did you come back out here?” I asked quietly.

“We’ve already had this conversation, sir. Skippy saved
our whole planet, and we made a deal with him-”

“No, Adams.
I
made a deal with Skippy. Not
humanity, not America, not you.
Me
. I needed to go back out with Skippy,
and we need enough crew to get his magic radio. That doesn’t mean you needed to
come along on this fool’s errand. You’ve done enough.”

“Marines never quit, sir. And we don’t stop until the
mission is done. This mission isn’t done, unless I missed a briefing along the
way.”

She wasn’t going to answer my question, not really, so
I tried to change the subject. “Why did you join the Marines? The truth is, I
joined the Army because I wanted to get out of my home town, and because my
father served. What I figured was, I’m in for a couple years, do my duty, get
money for college. When they rotated us back from Nigeria, I was hoping to stay
stateside for a while. Then the Ruhar hit us. Screwed up all my plans.”

“My mother was a Marine,” Adams explained.

“I didn’t know that,” I said. That fact was probably
in her personnel file, which I didn’t look at. Hadn’t needed to look at.

“She was a sergeant also. When she finished active
duty, she went into the reserves for eight years. After the Ruhar raid, she
volunteered again, when we came home, she was working security in Norfolk. My
father got a job in the area, they’re doing all right. When I told her I was
volunteering to go back out, she didn’t try to argue with me. My father did,
not my mother. She assumed all along that I was going back out. Back out, until
the job is finished, you know?”

“Yeah, I know.” The problem was, this mission might
never be complete, unless it involved Skippy leaving us, and the Dutchman
stranded in deep space. “Did your parents believe your cover story?”

“No. They didn’t say it, I could tell.”

“Same here. They knew not to ask. My father,” I
laughed, “wanted me to write, or something.”

“What did you tell him?”

“That I’d do my best.”

“You can’t ask for more than that, sir.”

“I’m worried that somehow I’ve used up all our luck
out here. This mission has been nothing but bad luck so far.”