this platoon.'
Donald took his hand with some hesitation. 'OIC?'
'Officer in Charge.'
Szabla curled her arm across her chest, rotating her fist so the ball of her biceps slid back and forth. Donald turned slowly to face Rex, who remained blank-faced, leaning back so the chair cocked under his weight.
'Well,' Rex said, staring at the ceiling. 'Let the games begin.'
After the introductions were made, the squad gathered around the conference table. Derek sat at the far end beside Rex and Donald, facing the soldiers. Cameron was relieved to see that he looked more steady than before, more professional.
Rex studied Derek, a hint of a smile on his lips. 'Sure we don't need more men?'
'Two of us are women,' Szabla said. 'And, in keeping with the finest naval tradition, prefer to be referred to as either broads or dames.'
Rex laughed, but Derek shot her a stern look. Donald rose, folding his hands across his generous belly. 'Now, I've already gone over the itinerary with Lieutenant Mako.'
'I'm up to speed,' Derek said. 'There'll be plenty of time for me to brief the others before we lift out tonight.'
'Good,' Rex said. 'Because it's bad enough there's going to be seven of you. But I certainly can't get through an expedition of this importance-'
'Of this importance,' Szabla repeated.
Rex stared at her. 'What the hell does that mean?'
'It means that with the current state of affairs, I don't think a scientific outing is of the utmost-'
'I'm handling this, Szabla,' Derek said.
'— importance that we need to dispatch top-notch soldiers-'
'Szabla,' Derek said, his voice raised in warning, 'Which part of 'I'm handling this' did you not understand?'
'I think 'handling,' LT. She has trouble with gerunds,' Justin said, turning a sweet smile to Szabla before she backhanded him. He caught her hand at the wrist inches from his nose.
Cameron almost told Justin and Szabla to shut up but restrained herself, not wanting to undermine Derek. She placed her hands between her knees, pressing them together.
'Top-notch?' Rex asked rhetorically. Savage dug his fingernail beneath a small scab on the back of his neck and scraped it off, examining it before flicking it onto the floor. He ran his hand across the sore, then wiped the blood on his pants.
'Rex,' Donald said softly, his voice tense. 'I don't think-'
Derek stood up and leaned over the table, facing his charges. 'Let's get one thing straight. We are escorting Dr. Williams because that's our mission.' He turned to Rex, who gazed up at him from his chair, seemingly awed by his considerable size. 'But you don't have to make things more difficult than they need be.'
'I'm merely taking issue with the choice of 'top-notch' as an adjective.' Rex pointed at Savage. 'That guy looks like he crawled out of a sewer.'
Savage waved. He went back to relacing his boot, which was resting on the table.
'The only thing that matters,' Cameron said, 'is the mission objective.'
'Who brought the girl scout?'
'Szabla,' Derek said. 'I'm not fucking around here.'
Donald removed his small spectacles and polished them nervously. 'I'd like to…if it's okay, I'd like to discuss-'
Rex bounced forward in his chair. 'We're flying into Guayaquil, need to stop there for the night. How? I don't know. That's your department. Obviously we're not taking United. We get to spend Christmas night in Guayaquil, lovely polluted industry town and cultural hub of the universe. We're picking up Dr. Juan Ramirez, a professor of ecology at Universidad de Guayaquil, who will be assisting me in my objectives. Then we're flying to Baltra, which houses the only operating airport in Galapagos. It's a former U.S. Army base, so that should float your respective boats.'
Savage belched. Rex elected to ignore him.
'Then we'll need to establish our telemetry gear at the Darwin Station on Santa Cruz, scold whoever's left in the seismology department for letting their operation go to shit, and we're on our way to Sangre de Dios where I'll be undertaking the extraordinarily ambitious and impressive task of outfitting the island with geodetic trinkets and toys-six Global Positioning Satellite units, to be precise.'
'What's the terrain?' Cameron asked.
'Quite varied. From scorched lava to dense forests.'
'We bringing NVGs?' Szabla asked.
Rex shot Derek a puzzled look. 'Night Vision Goggles,' Derek explained. He turned to Szabla. 'No. It's not triple canopy, and we're setting the GPS units during the day. We don't need to be tricked out for combat-it's not exactly a hot area.'
Szabla leaned back in her chair, placing her arms behind her neck and flexing. 'How do the units work?'
Rex said, 'They measure the rates of the land's deformation. We need six to form a network. They'll relay information to the Darwin Station, and the scientists there will, in turn, forward the information to us via computer.'
'Why don't you just have the information relayed directly here?'
'Unfortunately, the telemetry equipment isn't that sophisticated. It only relays information along line of sight. The distance from Ecuador to Sacramento is great enough that the curvature would throw off the transmissions.'
'Curvature?' Tucker asked.
'The earth is round,' Rex said, with a sardonic grin.
Tucker pressed his lips together. 'Oh, yeah.'
Derek leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. 'I understand transportation around the islands is a problem?'
'Yes, but I've arranged it all after we hit Baltra-it's just the airports that are tangled in military red tape. Boating between islands is a logistical pain in the ass, but not a political one.' Rex turned to face the others. 'In all, it's an eight-day trip-two days transport out, four days on Sangre, one day back. If all goes well, we'll be back for New Year's. Your job is to make sure I don't get shot, stabbed, or drawn and quartered in Guayaquil, to get me through the airports without any cavity searches, and to help me blanket Sangre de Dios and get the gear in place.'
'Aren't there scientists out there already who can do this?' Cameron asked. 'And save us the trip?'
'That's a very good question, Miss…' Rex looked at her expectantly.
'Chief,' Cameron said. 'Kates. But Cameron will do just fine. And a straightforward answer without the condescension.'
Rex whistled. 'Lo siento mucho.'
'No problema.'
Rex suppressed a smile as he leaned forward. 'All right, Cameron. The reason the scientists there can't take care of it is because their funding, as you can imagine, has gone to even further shit as a result of the economic turmoil, and they can barely afford upkeep, let alone cutting-edge technology. Shipping's gone to hell, so we can't send the equipment down to them. We can hardly get through via phone, fax, or E-mail just to find out what the hell's going on. On top of all that, they're fleeing the islands in droves.'
'Why?' Cameron asked.
'Because they're not as courageous as we are.' Rex smiled. 'Or as stupid. 'The few, the proud…''
'That's the Marines,' Szabla said.
Rex waved her off. 'Same difference.'
Tucker was listening intently. 'Why's Sangre de Dios so important?' he asked.
'Because it sits over a network of fissures running south from the Galapagos Fracture Zone and, more significant, fissures running inland from the East Pacific Rise-it's near the source of both major forces that affect movement of the entire Nazca plate.'
