Rick Partlow - Duty, Honor, Planet

“Thanks,” McKay said. “Have Ms. O’Keefe and her party boarded?”

“Not yet. They’re scheduled to board at 1600 hours.”

“Thanks. See you ’round, Ensign.”

“Pleasant voyage, Lieutenant.” The screen went dark.

With a deep sigh, McKay punched a query for the location of Situation Room Six into the terminal. It wouldn’t do to be late for his first meeting with his new command.

McKay found the meeting room without much difficulty and began looking it over, trying to find a dramatically effective place to position himself. He discovered, however, that zero gravity did not easily lend itself to dramatic poses.

He tried the desks first. They were supposedly engineered for use in null gravity, but McKay quickly came to the conclusion that they were designed by a sadist for use by masochists: the restraining bar built to hold him in the desk had this habit of jabbing him sharply in the groin whenever he shifted positions.

For the benefit of future generations of McKays, Jason abandoned the desk and contented himself with floating beside the holoprojection table, one hand attached to the edge of the projector to keep himself in place.

He didn’t have long to wait—it wasn’t five minutes before he heard voices approaching in the outer corridor.

“Naw, you’ve got it all wrong, Jock,” said a thick New England accent. “The Arm of Allah’s all washed up. All their leadership’s on Loki, freezing their asses off. The ones we have to worry about are the NeoMarxists.”

“I still say you’re completely off, Vinnie,” an Australian voice argued. “Just because they got one batch doesn’t mean the whole organization’s wiped out.”

The owners of the accents rounded the corner and came through the door abreast. One was a thin, wiry Tech-Sergeant in his early twenties, with close-cropped brown hair and a pale, freckled face. His uniform was perfectly pressed and spotless, and he had the aware look about him of someone who knew his abilities.

The other had that same look of awareness, but not the same eye for detail: McKay could spot at least one gig on his uniform for which a Marine D.I. would’ve torn him a new rectum. Not that Jason particularly cared; he wasn’t a nitpicker for such details as long as a troop did his job. And this man looked like he could handle that. At least a meter-nine, he towered a good eight centimeters over his companion and outweighed him by at least twenty kilos—a lot of iron had pumped its way into those muscles.

Yet, even with the weight and height advantage, and even though he shared the same rank as his companion, Jason somehow knew that the smaller man was the leader. There was something in his eyes that spoke of native intelligence and heads-up good sense. The big one, though his gunmetal grey eyes were clear and watchful, had the look of a follower.

The men halted inside the room, came to as much of attention as was possible in zero-g, and saluted.

“Sergeants Vincent Mahoney and James Gregory reporting, sir,” the wiry New Englander announced.

“At ease.” McKay returned their salutes, trying not to lose his grip on the holoprojector. “We’ll save the introductions till…”

A voice sounded from the hall.

“Mister, you will belay that kind of talk right now, or I will throw your ass so far into the brig that they’ll have to feed you with a mass driver!”

“I was just trying to be friendly, ma’am,” a smooth, unperturbed male voice responded. “Even officers need a little companionship now and then.”

“My needs are not your concern!”

The exchange came to an abrupt halt as the two rounded the bend and came face-to-face with Lieutenant McKay.

“…the rest of the team gets here,” McKay finished his thought with a deep sigh.

“Uh… Lieutenant Shannon Stark,” the female officer told him, thrusting out a hand, charging through her obvious embarrassment. Jason judged her to be in her mid-twenties, with the immaculate uniform and well-toned athletic form of an officer who took her job seriously. Cut regulation-short, her red-gold hair still retained a subtly-styled femininity, complimenting her high cheekbones and strong chin in a way that made Jason’s breath come a bit shorter.

“Pleased to meet you, Lieutenant.” Jason shook her hand and shook off the unexpected feeling, then looked over to the Tech-2 who had walked in with her.

“Technician Second-Class Tom Crossman reporting, sir.” The wavy-haired enlisted man threw him a sloppy salute. Everything about the man seemed manifestly unmilitary, from the barely-regulation haircut and mustache, to the way he wore the top fastener of his uniform undone, to the loose way he carried himself. McKay wondered what Colonel Mellanby had been thinking.

“At ease,” Jason returned ironically, not bothering to answer the salute. “I’m Lieutenant McKay, your new CO. I assume you all know that our assignment is to safeguard Ms. O’Keefe on her tour of the colony worlds. We will carry out this assignment despite what any of us may think of her involvement in the EJA, or her father’s politics, and despite her feelings toward us. We will be supported by a Marine Reaction Force, and we’ve been provided with a variety of special weapons. I assume all of you have been checked out with unconventional weapons?”

“We’ve all been through Colonel Mellanby’s training course,” Lieutenant Stark confirmed.

“Good. That’s it for now. I know you’re all the best or you wouldn’t be here, so I’m counting on your support. I’ll see you all in the g-sleep chambers.” He saluted and the enlisted returned it before heading for the door. “If you’d wait for a moment, Lieutenant,” he asked Stark as she was moving to leave.

He waited till the others had made their way out, then turned back to the woman.

“Lieutenant Stark,” he began hesitantly, “did the Snake—I mean, Colonel Mellanby—recruit each of you personally?”

“As far as I know,” she replied, regarding him evenly, with something of an air of evaluation.

“Did he mention anything to you about his real reason for forming this team?”

“He did say something about an idea to recreate an organization similar to the old special operations forces,” she confirmed with the briefest of hesitations.

“What do you think of the team?” He cast a meaningful glance at the door.

“I only had a few minutes with them when we arrived on board.” She shrugged. “First impressions? Mahoney seems like the best of the bunch. He seems to have natural leadership, and from the brief look I got at his personnel file”— She had personnel files, McKay thought to himself with more than a bit of envy—“he scored highly in the training. He and the big fellow are both ex-Corps. Gregory’s competent, and he’s an expert at almost every weapon made. He’ll always be a follower, though.”

“What about Crossman?” Jason asked directly. “He doesn’t seem to be the type Colonel Mellanby would pick.”

“He’s had some discipline problems,” she admitted. “And, to be frank, he seems to be a gigantic pain in the ass. But he’s a fifth degree black belt in Tae Kwan Do, and he’s put four separate unarmed combat instructors in the hospital.”

“No shit,” McKay blurted, shooting a glance at the door, and the path Crossman had taken out of the room. “Well, I guess the Snake knows what he’s doing, as always. Anyway, a couple things. First, I want you to meet me outside my cabin at 1700 hours to go have a talk with Ms. O’Keefe about security. Second, call me Jason, okay? It’d get pretty confusing with all those ‘Lieutenant’s’ flying around.”

“All right, Jason.” She smiled, and McKay could have sworn the room brightened visibly. “I’m Shannon.”