John Ringo: Manxome Foe

A third face, though, caught his eye. Corporal Joshua Lyle was standing in position just down from Seeley in Third Platoon. The very tall and skinny corporal with a shock of short-cut nearly white hair was cocked slightly to the side, the result of a nearly fatal Humvee accident. He’d been in rehab for damned near a year before being returned to duty as an armorer. But the spot he was standing in was for one of the line platoons.

“Lurch?” Berg said, twisting to look at the armorer. “Aren’t you sort of out of position?”

“Not anymore,” the corporal replied in a deep baritone. “While you guys was on vacation, I was going through re-qual. I’m cleared for line duty,” he finished with a grin.

“Congratulations,” Eric said honestly. He liked the quirky armorer and was glad he was back on the line, which had always been his preference. “But who’s going to come up with weird, wacky and vitally necessary weapons on the spur of the moment? I depend on you, Lurch!”

“I trained in the new guy,” Lurch said, grinning. “I think he might do.”

“You di’n’t train me for nottink, Corporal!” an accented voice said from the rear of the formation. “I pocking train you !”

Berg couldn’t for the life of him see who was speaking so he lifted up on tiptoes. Beside the new operations sergeant, he could see a shock of black hair and that was about it. Whoever had spoken was apparently just barely regulation height.

“Okay, I admit it,” Lurch said, still grinning. “Sergeant Portana was one of my instructors in Armorer’s School.”

“Dat right,” the apparently Sergeant Portana said loudly. “And I t’ought you neber pocking pass…”

“Ten-hut!” First Sergeant Powell bellowed, striding towards the front of the formation. “And for those of you who cannot recall your basic military etiquette that means stand straight with your mouth shut.”

Top looked around the formation and nodded.

“Report!”

“First Platoon, one missing!”

“Second Platoon, three missing or not present!”

“Third Platoon, two Marines missing or not present!”

“Not bad,” Top said. “At Ease. First an administrative item. Captain Zanella, having noted the cost of a roll of space tape and its impact on the budget, has ordered all personal rolls turned in and use of the material in the future to be by platoon leaders and platoon sergeants and above only and only in fully official capacities.”

“First Sergeant?” Corwin said, raising his hand. “Did you… discuss this with the Old Man?”

“No, I didn’t, Corwin,” Top replied. “He’s responsible for the budget. It’s his call.”

“Aye, aye, First Sergeant,” Corwin replied, frowning.

“What’s the deal?” Himes whispered.

“Space tape is…” Berg said, his eyes wide. “Space tape is how everything works ! Without space tape we’re…”

“At ease,” the first sergeant said, quieting the murmurs. “Now for the mission. A research group on one of the gate worlds was apparently attacked. The gate has been closed for safety purposes. We are ordered to investigate, see if there are any survivors of the attack and our response, determine who the attackers were and report back. The world is going to be about a month’s cruise away. We will be doing pre-mission physicals en route. We lift no later than midnight on Tuesday. The ship is done refitting except for some minor details but none of our shit is on-board. We have two days to get everything loaded in my order of importance. Since that includes the Wyverns, and the ship will be loading all her other maulk at the same time, we’re going to be pressed for time. So I need you to stay focused on the mission and not grapping off. Are there any questions?”

“First Sergeant?” Seeley said, raising his hand.

“Go, Chuckie.”

“So our mission, as Space Marines, is to go to a planet where a colony has been attacked and contact is cut off, find out who attacked them and deal with it?” Seeley asked.

“Correct,” the first sergeant replied. “And, no, Chuckie, you can not ask ‘How do I get out of this chicken maulk outfit.’ ”

“How’s it going, Astro?” the CO asked, looking over Weaver’s shoulder as sailors toted bundles through the crowded conn.

The ASS Vorpal Blade had undergone several changes that were not directly inherent to her mission. One example was moving a small navigational section into the conn. The already crowded compartment did not need to become more crowded and navigation could, technically, be done from anywhere on the ship. However, it was recognized that the nature of the astrogator was such that he doubled as, effectively, the ship’s science officer. Anything “scientifically weird” about what they were doing — defined as astronomical, astrophysical or gravitational anomalies — meant that the conning officer was going to ask the astrogator: “Okay, what’s going on?” It just made sense to, somehow, shoehorn the astro into the same compartment as the guy doing the asking.

Doing so, however, had been difficult. Despite the massive size of a ballistic nuclear missile submarine, the interior was cramped. The conn was the size of a small living room, only ten feet wide and barely twelve long. It contained the diving board, the planesmen, the conning officer, etc. Six people, their chairs in several cases, readouts, input systems, screens and the equipment they handled had to fit in an area most people would consider comfortable for two.

The designers had managed to fit a station designed for underwater navigation and deep space astrogation in. They had done so by making everything very small .

“There are times that I’d kill for one decent screen, sir,” Weaver answered, peering at the six-inch plasma screen, one of three stacked vertically, that currently showed a moving star field. “Not to mention a decent sized keyboard.” The one that he hit a command on was about the size of a laptop’s.

“Want to use the main viewers?” the CO asked, pointing forward.

While there was not a huge amount of lateral space in the conn, there was a bit more vertically. Oh, it wasn’t a high compartment, but there was some free space.

The Blade , during its repairs, had been upgraded with a set of adjustable screens for viewing in the conn. Made by the Adari, they were not only thin, they were flexible. They could be rolled down from the overhead and while fairly rigid were flexible enough that if someone hit them with his head they would bend rather than cause a concussion.

They also were selectively sizeable. Although they were normally rolled down so that they were only a meter or so in height they could be lowered all the way to the deck. With all six deployed and an exterior view on, it was a bit like being on the hull. The capability had forced the refitters to, reluctantly, remove the “window” in conn from the Blade .

“Not with what I’m working on, sir,” Bill said, grinning. “I don’t want the crew getting any more nervous about this mission than they already are. And having the astrogator obviously unsure where he’s going wouldn’t be good.”

“Just tell me we’re not going to hit any stars,” the CO said.

“Can’t, sir,” Bill replied. “Basically, we’re going far enough out that the star charts start getting iffy. I take that back. We shouldn’t hit any stars . Just the new visuals would prevent that.”

The viewscreens wouldn’t be of much use without something to see. Another upgrade had been to install a series of powerful telescopes on the sail and in “bubbles” about the circumference of the hull. With the new main telescope, which was good enough to resolve a twenty-meter diameter boulder on the Moon, the ship had powerful “eyes” pointed in every direction. In space, visual detection was still one of the better ways to find things. But the retrofit of such a large aperture telescope was a problem.