Okuda cringed. “I do, but I don’t like it, mum.”
Susan snorted through her nose. “I’m not a huge fan of it myself, but it weighs the dice in our favor, if only a milligram or two. You and your squad will stack up right behind me. Make a show of it, the gracious captain at the head of her brave warriors.”
“And if they shoot you for your generosity?”
“Then you’ll have a mad minute to return their hospitality before Warner drops the hammer.”
“Out in a blaze of glory, huh?”
“I thought that’s what you grunts lived for.”
“We prefer to do it where there’s camera drones to record our kicking posterior for posterity.”
Susan smirked as the pressure indicator on the hatch clicked over from red to green.
“We have a green seal, mum. Ready when you are,” the pilot called back.
Susan stood and straightened her flight suit, then pulled her top cover from the loop over her right shoulder and fitted it neatly, securing it in place with a discreet bobby pin. “Sergeant, would you get the door for me, please?”
Okuda spun the hatch and swung it open. Susan floated inside the airlock, guiding herself along the handrails. Her squad of marines filled in the space behind her like racehorses being led into their chutes, all tension and muscle balanced on a hair trigger.
“Easy, folks,” Susan cooed at them. “We’re all friends here until I say otherwise. Now, big smiles, everybody. Let’s meet the neighbors.” She hit the release button with a fist. The outer door pushed out, then slid to the side in a flash. The transfer tube beyond was just different enough to give her a moment’s pause. Centuries of alien invasion movies had prepared her for organic, sticky-looking construction that screamed extraterrestrial compared to the familiar, angular, manufactured aesthetic of human creations.
Instead, the tube could have been made of the same flexible, transparent polymer as the one in Ansari’s boat bay. The only noticeable differences were that it was about half a meter wider in diameter, and instead of segmented reinforcing rings, the structure was supported by a coil of rigid material that spiraled through the clear plastic like a Slinky. It could easily have been built by a different contractor instead of a different species. There were even handholds built into the coils, although their spacing and thickness spoke to users with a larger wingspan and hands than her own.
Susan floated through the tunnel, heart pounding in her ears like a rock concert. Behind her, a flock of black-clad marines glided on the wing like birds of prey scouring the horizon for their next meal. Their presence reassured her, even as she admitted they were about as useful as a peacock’s feathers in this context. Still, impressive displays had been diffusing violence for millions of years. It was worth a shot.
Much like on the Ansari, the Chusexx’s boat bay had a large viewing gallery with panoramic windows. Unlike the Ansari, those windows were filled with two-meter-tall monsters that looked like the offspring of an ill-conceived union of a wasp and an Alaskan king crab.
A deeply seated part of Susan’s lizard brain recoiled at the sight. She’d seen images of the Xre before, of course. She’d done fully immersive VR boarding/counter-boarding exercises back in C school in haptic-suit simulations until she had bedsores. But no matter how exacting those renderings were, no matter how well the environmentals were captured, it was still the difference between watching porn and losing your virginity.
Susan beat back the terror and bile threatening to storm the back of her throat and willed the women and men behind her to do the same. So close to the enemy she’d dedicated her life to holding back, it was easy to forget that she held the ultimate trump card. Even in the micro gravity, Susan was acutely aware of the mass of the Glock strapped to her hip. Through conscious effort, she didn’t reach for it, not even to check that it was properly seated in its holster. Any movement that could be misconstrued as hostile might prove as deadly as a bullet.
She reached the lockout. With a pneumatic hiss and a slight metallic screech, the outer door opened like a flower with pedals made of scimitars.
Okay, that’s a little different, Susan allowed nervously. The space beyond was smaller than the airlock on the shuttle. Not everyone was going to fit in one go. “Okuda?”
“I see it, mum,” the sergeant answered. “Break up into fire teams,” she called back to her squad. “Gibson, Panaka, Valerian, on me. Keep those hallway brooms tight to your chests unless I say otherwise.”
Susan stuck a thumb at the closet in front of them. “You think all five of us will fit in there at once?”
“Think skinny, mum. And exhale fully.”
Somehow, everyone fit, with enough room that no one needed to stop breathing. Although if their hosts didn’t open the inner door soon, the oxygen would run out in a hurry. Fortunately, they didn’t have long to wait before the outer door sealed and the lockout cycled through whatever safety checks its programing mandated and the inner door obliged them.
The smell was the first thing to reach Susan. It wasn’t unpleasant, but it was complex, strong, and utterly unfamiliar. Metallic and earthy at the same time, like someone decided to farm mushrooms inside a foundry. Not wanting to seem timid, Susan
