panned his binoculars over the narrow draw below them.
“Do you see them?” he asked Shannon, shaking his head slightly.
“Further north,” she indicated, training her own glasses toward the mouth of the draw, shielding them against the midday sun with her other hand.
Jason followed her direction and finally caught a hint of movement through the glasses. He focused in on it and saw one of Lambert’s Marines low-crawling from cover to cover, the rifle barrel of the man overwatching his move barely visible from behind a thick stand of brush. Somewhere ahead of them, at the other end of the draw, waited Captain Trang and his two men, serving as the opposing force. Jason and his team had held that honor for over a month, but the two units had become too used to one another and Lambert had asked Trang for help.
Another pair of Marines advanced up the draw, their camo fatigues blending in with the grey and brown rock around them. Watching them, Jason had a vivid flashback to his days as an enlisted man, running exercises like this in the North Dakota Badlands at the Marine Training Grounds with blank ammo and laser indicators. Everything was so much simpler when all you had to worry about was covering your buddy’s maneuver and keeping your ass out of the line of fire.
“Lieutenant McKay!” He turned at the shout from behind him and saw Jock Gregory sprinting from the shelter’s side entrance, waving his hands like a maniac, eyes wild. “Lieutenant McKay, come quick!”
McKay stood, letting his binoculars hang freely from the strap around his neck. Beside him, Shannon rolled into a sitting position, looking up with curiosity at Jock as he ran up to them.
“What is it, Jock?” McKay asked the Tech-Sergeant as the man skidded to a halt, panting with exertion.
“Sir,” Gregory gasped, “Vinnie… the radio…”
“Shit,” Jason breathed. Before Jock could elaborate further, Jason was sprinting for the shelter, Shannon at his heels.
“Tell Lambert,” she shouted over her shoulder at Jock just before she ducked through the entrance.
Jason and Shannon raced through the garage and into the shelter control room, where a small crowd had already begun to gather around Vinnie at the communications board. McKay brushed past Governor Sigurdson and Carmella Mendoza and unceremoniously yanked the earphones off Vinnie’s head. Hurriedly pulling the headset into place, he caught an explosion of static and a faint voice.
“…repeat, this is Captain Joyce Minishimi of the RSS
Jason twisted the headset’s microphone around and hit the transmit key.
“
There was a heart-stopping pause, and McKay had a nightmare vision of the ship not picking up his signal, abandoning the planet and heading back to Earth.
“I read you, McKay,” Captain Minishimi’s voice finally came back, a note of caution evident in her tone. “Tell me, is Gunnery Sergeant Constantine with you?”
“Afraid not.” Jason had to admire her precautions. “But we do have a Gunny Lambert somewhere around here. Will he do?”
“That’s a roger, McKay.” Relief was evident in her reply. “It’s good to hear from you. Is Ms. O’Keefe all right?”
“She’s just fine, Captain,” he assured her, eyes darting up at Val and Glen, part of the crowd gathered around the radio. “We’ve even got the Governor with us here—but we could sure use a ride if you’re headed our way.”
“Oh, I think we can manage something, McKay. We’ll have a shuttle down to you as soon as we reach orbit.”
“Captain, how did you get here so quickly?” Jason asked. “I didn’t think anybody’d realize what had happened for months. Did the
“Negative, Lieutenant.” Minishimi’s voice was grim. “The
“Damn,” Jason mumbled to himself, realizing just how close they’d been to being stuck on Aphrodite for at least another year, until the arrival of the next scheduled patrol.
“Anything else you folks need?” the captain asked him.
“Well,” he said, “we’ve been out of the loop for a while, ma’am. You wouldn’t happen to know who won the Superbowl, would you?”
Minishimi laughed. “Let me put it this way, Lieutenant,” she told him, “I hope you didn’t have any money on the Cowboys or you’re shit out of luck.”
Chapter Thirteen
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.”
Jason swallowed hard and led Shannon into Colonel Mellanby’s office, the door hissing ominously shut behind them. Of all the things he’d looked forward to in the jubilation and relief of returning to Earth, this was not one of them. He’d had waking nightmares of The Snake pinning him to the wall like a bug in a child’s collection, ticking off a list of Jason’s various indiscretions and bad decisions like an archangel at the Last Judgement, and immediately putting Shannon in charge of the team.
And maybe she should be in charge, he’d reflected. After all, she’d led them in the successful attack on the spaceport while he’d been off playing cave-man. So he stepped into the office fully prepared to face the wrath of the Snake and give up his command.
But the smile that played over Kenneth Mellanby’s face as they stepped inside was decidedly un-Snake-like. It seemed almost friendly. For a moment, Jason thought they’d mistakenly stepped into the wrong office, but then the expression was gone as if it had never been, and the Snake-mask fell back into place.
“Lieutenants McKay and Stark report, sir,” Jason announced, he and Shannon stiffening into a salute.
“At ease,” Mellanby snapped, waving off the salute. “Have a seat, both of you.”
The Colonel watched them feel their way into their chairs, then paced around his desk, one hand behind his back, the other filled with a sheaf of hardcopy. “I’ve read the reports of your debriefing,” he told them, slapping the file against his thigh. “I’ve heard the facts, I’ve seen the pictures.” He fixed them with a stare. “Now I want your impressions.”
Jason saw the man’s eyes on him and squirmed uncomfortably. He shrugged.
“Lieutenant Stark had more contact with the enemy than I did. But from what I could see, I would say that the things that attacked us—the troopers themselves—are more like some kind of robot or mind-controlled slave than truly sentient intelligences. Once the Invaders pulled out, the troops they left behind didn’t even try to find food or water. They just shot at anything in sight until their ammo ran out, then wandered around till they died.”
“But when they were being controlled,” Shannon put in, “they were highly organized. They were capable of operating those ‘Hopper’ things, which must be pretty complex.”
“I’ve heard all this in the transcripts.” Mellanby shook his head impatiently. “I don’t want to hear the how—I want the why.”
“These things are obviously considered expendable,” Jason reasoned. “That means they must have plenty of them—either they breed them somewhere or they have some way of manufacturing them quickly.”
“Their technology doesn’t appear to be that advanced,” Shannon said. “Maybe they
“Or they’re short on ships and can’t risk having one damaged in battle,” Jason suggested. “Either way, having these… drones or whatever sneak in and do their dirty work must be the easiest way for them to do things.”
