Ian Douglas - Battlespace

There were none.

“Very well. You are dismissed.”

Thirty days’ restriction and five hundred newdollars? A bit steep, Garroway reflected … but not a serious hit. There was no way he was going to mingle with civilians ashore any longer … so the restriction and even the fine didn’t hurt him that much.

The principle of the thing still burned. He and his friends had been insulted and attacked. Worse, the damned watchdog nano had then incapacitated them, rendering them helpless.

At least they hadn’t also been fined for the loss of their uniforms. Those were cheap enough—they were grown right on the spot from raw synthewool to spec—but they’d expected to be gigged for the thefts as well.

Mostly, he kept remembering his conversations at that party … his difficulty even understanding what was being discussed. Oh, sure, there were translation programs that could be run in his implant, but the attitudes he’d seen seemed as alien as the language, or more so.

It was a bit disconcerting to know that he’d come home … and not to feel at home after all. …

10 NOVEMBER 2159

“All right, Marines. Listen up!”

Garroway looked up from his LR-2120, partially disassembled on the table before him, to hear what Staff Sergeant Dunne had to say. Around him, the steady buzz of conversation among other Marines in the company died away.

“Gentlemen, ladies,” Dunne went on, “first off … happy fucking birthday !”

The announcement was met with cheers and shouts of Ooh-rah! and fists pounding on tables. The tenth of November was the anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Marines—originally the Continental Marines—by an act of Congress in 1775, a date celebrated by Marines around the world and far, far beyond.

“Festivities begin at 1900 hours tonight at the mess hall. Cake, ice cream, and pogey bait will be the order of the day.”

He waited for a fresh round of cheers to die down. “Okay, okay, simmer down. Next order of business. The waiting is over. The Nergs are going to war.”

That raised a low-voiced murmur of excitement. Nergs was a new battlename for the Marines, another in the long list of nom d’guerres bestowed by enemies and friends alike—devil dogs, leathernecks, jarheads, gyrines. Nerg, or Nergal may-I, was from the phrase, identical in both An and in ancient Sumerian, nir-gál-mè-a , which meant something like “respected in battle.” The Fighting Forty-fourth had won that accolade from the Ahannu warriors on Ishtar immediately after the desperately fought action that had ended in Ramsey’s Peace.

“Now,” Dunne went on, “the really good news. Authorization has come through for promotions for all personnel who were on the Ishtar op. You have all received an automatic advancement by one pay grade. Personnel advancing to sergeant or higher will still be expected to take the test for your new rank, but the time-in-grade requirement has been satisfied.”

There was some more cheering and a rattle of applause at that. Garroway grinned. He’d just made corporal. Decent!

“A new download is available,” Dunne went on, “coded White Star-one-one. Please open it up and take a look.”

Garroway brought up the code phrase and thought-clicked it. Immediately, he was in a noumenal space. …

Visual: Star-strewn night, gas clouds, a pair of intensely brilliant pinpoint-stars, and the vast and enigmatic loom of a ring-shaped structure, obviously huge. …

“The ring is our objective,” Dunne went on, his voice sounding in their thoughts as they studied the alien construct. “It is located in the Sirius star system, 8.6 light-years from Earth. We believe it to be a stargate, a device floating in deep space that allows instantaneous travel between stars. Those patterns of light along the rim suggest that it is inhabited. We do not know by who.”

Sirius . Garroway felt the word strike hard, like a blow to the stomach. Lynnley !

The Marine company watched in silence as the golden needle-shape emerged from the ring, accelerated, and the image was suddenly and disconcertingly lost.

“These images were transmitted ten years ago by the explorer ship Wings of Isis ,” Dunne’s voice went on as the blast of static was replaced by another view of the ring. “We do not know what happened to the Isis , but we must assume she was destroyed. There’s been no word from her since these images were received.

“The Wings of Isis had a crew of 245, 30 of them Marines, as well as several AIs. We have no real hope that any of them are still alive out there—or, if they are, that they will still be alive ten years from now when we arrive in-system. However, the Marines do not abandon their own. Accordingly, MIEU-1 is being prepared to deploy to the Sirius system. Once there, we will recon the area and assess the situation. We will attempt to make contact with whoever or whatever is operating that stargate. If necessary, we will organize a boarding party, enter the artifact, rescue human survivors if any, and maintain a beachhead, providing security for a science team which will perform a threat evaluation of the structure.”

Profound silence attended this announcement. Garroway found himself grappling with a dozen questions. How big was that wheel? How were they supposed to get inside, ring a chime at the front door? What kind of defenses did the thing have? How the hell were the Marines supposed to draw up a battle plan when they didn’t even know the nature of their enemy?

But more pressing still were the unanswered—and unanswerable—questions about Lynnley.

In subjective terms, the time he’d actually been awake and not crowding the speed of light, it had been less than a year since he’d seen her last, just before he’d entered cybehibe for the voyage to Ishtar. He missed her. In his mind, she was still very much alive, alive in his recent past. The knowledge that it had been eleven years since whatever had happened out at Sirius had happened seemed completely surreal.

Dead eleven years? No. He couldn’t get his mind wrapped around that one.

The images from Sirius faded out. Garroway sat, once again, at a table in the barracks, his laser rifle partially disassembled in front of him.

“Questions?” Dunne snapped.

“Gunnery Sergeant?” Sergeant Houston said. “What if we don’t want to go?”

“Come again?”

“What if we don’t want to go? I’ve got six years in sub, twenty-six ob. I‘ve done my bit. I want out , man.”

“This is not a volunteers only mission,” Dunne replied slowly. “The brass is treating this like an ordinary deployment, with two exceptions.

“First, if you’re within one year of your scheduled retirement, you can request an exemption. Since your expected OTIS—that’s your objective time-in-service—since your OTIS will be on the order of six months to one year for this mission, you may opt for taking an early out instead.

“Second, there will also be a case review board. Anyone with special needs or hardships arising from this deployment can talk to them. I’m given to understand they will not be unreasonable, and that they will consider each application on a case-by-case basis.

“However, I would ask you to think very carefully before deciding to remain on Earth. Things are different here, now, than we knew them twenty-some years ago. If you elect to stay behind, you will be given psychological assistance, including special programming for your implants to help you … adjust.”