One Good Soldier

backup hardware long enough for this to work.'

'Everybody has studied the Buckley Maneuver, Joe. They teach it at the Academy nowadays, I hear.' Keri smiled at him. 'Besides, I was actually there, if you recall. Good thing I wasn't actually in Engineering when it happened.'

'Well, I'm just saying.'

'Understood, sir!' Keri snapped back at her acting CHENG with another smile. 'I've got it under control.' Joe didn't say anything more. Keri had been there at the Battle of the Oort when he did this before, and he had ordered her out of the room before he and EM1 Shah triggered the Buckley Junction and cooked themselves. He knew that she had seen him and Shah in the hospital with their bodies cooked through and through. She understood.

'Good. Now let's move.' The sound of a firecracker popping one level out went off. The AEMs were on them.

It only took the AEMs about a minute to get through to the Engineering Room hatch. But that minute was all the Engineering team of the U.S. Navy flagship needed to set up a nice surprise for them. The team hunkered down behind a makeshift X-ray shelter that several of the enlisted sailors had stacked up. There was a stack of cabling spools, spare power couplings, sheet metal and armor plating, chairs, computer stands, and anything else of high density they could find.

'I hear them at the hatch, sir!' one of the firemen standing guard at the door shouted.

'Then get your ass over here under cover, Fireman!' Joe turned to his MPA. 'Keri, you know, we really ought to consider installing an X-ray shelter in here somewhere.'

'Not a bad idea, Joe.'

'All right, as soon as that door opens, snap the trap on our mice.'

About that time another popper went off just outside the hatch. The lock cycled and the hatch swung open. An infinitely long second or two passed, and then another popper went off on the aft hatch. Both passageways were opened and simultaneously AEMs burst through the doors with their rifles drawn.

'Wait,' Joe whispered to Keri. 'We need them all in here.'

Several more AEMs filed into the large Engineering Room in cover formation. They were getting ever so close to the makeshift redoubt. It was now or never.

'Do it!' Joe said. 'Everybody down.'

There were no fireworks this time. There were no lightning bolt–sized arcs jumping around the room from deck to bulkhead. There were no vapor clouds from ionized metal being thrown about. And most importantly, in Joe's mind, was that there were no real hard X-rays cooking his liver and brain! But as far as the sim refs were concerned, it was all there, and the AEMs from the Blair were right in the midst of it.

The AEMs must have been told of their predicament as there was a chorus of 'What the . . .' and 'Goddamned motherf—' and other such colorful and untranslatable AEM lingo drowning out the hum of the jaunt drive and the other high-technology components of a state-of-the-art supercarrier's Engineering Room. The AEMs had their masks down, probably because of Joe's gas trick. That hadn't helped with the X-rays. A moment more of the cursing continued as the marines started popping up the antireflection-coated visors one by one. One of them actually twisted his helmet off and tethered it down the back of his armor.

'Goddamned needed some more sack time any-fucking-way,' the AEM lance corporal said. He started to sit down, but his NCO was on top of him and in his face in a heartbeat.

Debbie?

They're dead, Joe. All of them!

Hot damn! And us?

The sim has given us fifteen minutes of effectiveness, and then we will be listed as casualties. The pile of stuff helped, I guess.

I guess. Joe smiled to himself then stood up.

'Welcome to the Sienna Madira,' Joe said. One of the AEMs instinctively pulled up his weapon. Joe just smiled and raised his left eyebrow at the man. 'Dead marines have a hard time pulling the trigger on those things. Now, if you folks wouldn't mind standing over by the port bulkhead out of our way, we have more work to do.'

'Son of a fuckin' bitch!' One of the marines kicked at the deck with his armored foot, making a loud clank as he did.

'Fuck it!' one of them replied. 'We're dead. You fucking move us.'

'If that's the way you want it, I'll have one of the firemen pull a repulsor lift in here and have him push you up against the bulkhead. Be advised, we haven't really trained him on that thing yet, and he's as likely to squish you into the bulkhead as he is to run over you. But if that's what you want.'

'Stow that shit, Private!' The same NCO turned to Joe. 'Lieutenant