“What happens when you lose a crewman?” Willum asked, thinking of the two men killed aboard Bonaventure.
The long pause surprised Willum. He’d never had a psychotronic unit delay an answer. “I grieve for them,” the Bolo finally said. “Giurgiu Galati—although he hated that name; I always called him Specter, too—and Honshuko Kai were my boys. Specter and I had been together for seven years, three months, twenty-one days, six hours, five point seven minutes. Honey Pie and I were together from the day I was commissioned. The Enemy has robbed me of their company. May we discuss my damaged food processor instead, please?”
In that moment, Willum DeVries stopped thinking of her as the Mark XXI or even as just the Bolo. She became real to him, someone who’d lost friends same as Willum—same as anyone in the military since the coming of the Deng invasion fleet.
In that moment, she became “Red”—and, possibly, the only friend he would find on this mission.
“Sure. We can talk about something else. And . . . I’m sorry. I’ve lost friends to spodders, too.” Willum cleared his throat. “Now, let’s see about this processor.”
“Thank you, Willum.”
He gathered up his equipment packs and headed aft to the so-called galley, a tiny corner of the Crew Compartment where an automated food processor battled for space with a refrigeration unit and a waste disposal unit. Either the crew ate off their laps or some kind of table could be raised between the seats. The crew’s seats were bolted to the deck. Behind him, the men and their commanding officers were going through a very thorough weapons check. Nobody paid him the slightest attention, except to grunt when he had to step over them to reach the “galley.”
Willum dug out equipment and began to investigate circuitry he understood. “Ahh . . . Yeah, I think I see the problem. . . .”
It felt good to finally be useful again.
2
Harry “Gunny” Hokum closed the access panel which shut off the Command Compartment from the rest of Red’s interior. Banjo glanced up, nodded, then went back to his screens, monitoring everything which came in via Red’s sensors, packaging it for easier analysis, noticing any tiny anomaly that might mean danger to Red or her crew. Doug Hart, busy working with Red replanning their mission parameters now that they were the only surveillance unit left, swivelled around in his command chair.
“What’s up, Gunny?”
He leaned his back comfortably against the closed door. “Got the men settled in. Everything looks fine; nothing damaged in drop.”
“Good. What else? You look like a man with a problem.”
Gunny scratched his elbow. “Yeah. Well, maybe. What can you tell me about the Frog?”
“Hopper?” Hart frowned. “Problems?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. He’s green, scared pretty bad. The boys are shook up, losing Specter the way we did, and Honey Pie, too, and even though they’re smart enough not to say it, well . . . It’s pretty clear they don’t have much faith in Hopper. That boy’s rattled. I’ve got him working solo right now, doing maintenance on his weapons. Figured he needed something familiar to settle him down. But I gotta know what he’s made of before we Dismount.”
Hart nodded. “I glanced at the file Ish gave us before drop, but I haven’t had much time to do more than glance. He’s been a shipboard Marine since joining the service. He’s never seen combat—but how many of ’em have? Goddamn fuzzy spiders . . .” Gunny and Banjo muttered agreement. Hart pulled at his lower lip. “I remember reading he graduated well in his class, so they haven’t stuck us with a stupid replacement. Red? What can you tell us we haven’t already covered?”
“Danny qualified expert with all weapons for which he is rated. He is seventh-generation career Marine. His grandfather was decorated for valor in the Halloran Campaign. He studied xenobiology, so is passingly familiar with the physical and psychological profile of the Enemy; as familiar as a Marine private with no field experience can be. I suspect this is one of the reasons Ish selected him, Doug. He has scored well on all field-combat tests and has hearing two points above the norm for human males his age.
“He has been nervous since boarding, potentially because his first combat mission is a dangerous assignment with strangers rather than his shipboard comrades; but blood chemistry and pulse rate suggest he is calming down nicely. That was a good idea, Gunny, putting him to work cleaning his rifle. I would suggest making an effort to include him in group activities very soon. He needs to become part of this crew.”
Hart nodded. “Yes, the sooner the better. We’ll have a couple of days underwater for you to work on that, Gunny. Get him involved. Work on the others. How’s Fritz?”
Gunny grimaced. “Crazy’s spooked. Hell, you know how he and Specter were. Damn finest team I ever saw work together. He’s got a bad feeling about this mission.”
Hart didn’t speak. From the tightening of his jaw muscles, Gunny knew his commander shared Crazy Fritz’s feeling—maybe because of Crazy’s gut reaction. It didn’t make sense; but some men just seemed to know when trouble was coming, like a weathervane pointing the path of a storm front.
“Do what you can to loosen him up,” Hart said at length. “We need him on edge, but not paranoid. How about you, Gunny? We had a bad start.” Hart met his gaze squarely and held it.
Gunny didn’t hesitate. “I got confidence in you, sir. We’ll complete the mission.”
Doug Hart grunted. “Good. I know I can count on you.”
Banjo looked up from his screen. “And you, Doug? While we’re baring our souls? Personally, I’m scared spitless.”
Hart grinned suddenly. “You would be. You always did hate spiders.”
Banjo snorted rudely.
Hart sobered. “This is no easy mission. Especially with LRH-1327 gone. We were damn lucky to get down in one piece. They had us dead to rights from the moment we dropped out of FTL. But . . .” He swivelled absently in his command chair, burning up nervous energy. “We have a good chance to complete the mission. Red and Banjo and I are working up details now for overlapping recon plans, since we’ll have to cover LRH-1327’s mission parameters as well. It won’t be a cakewalk, but we’ll manage.”
“Just do me a favor,” Banjo smiled. “Dance at my wedding when this is over.”
Gunny grinned. “You meet somebody?”
Hart laughed and thumped Banjo’s shoulder. “Should’a known you’d go and pull an Ish Matsuro on me.”
Banjo chuckled. “Wonder what Ish thought when we dropped off that ship without him.”
“He missed it like hell,” Gunny muttered. “Should’a seen his face.” Gunny—perhaps alone of the human crew—knew what it had cost Ish Matsuro to give up command of LRH-1313. Red knew, but she wasn’t talking either. Not even Doug Hart, who had been seconded to command with his departure, probably guessed the depth of Ish’s pain. Gunny remembered like yesterday the conversation he’d inadvertently overheard late in the night, with Ish pouring his heart out and Red listening, commenting quietly, trying to guide their commander toward the right decision.
No one but Gunny and Red herself knew that level-headed, no-nonsense Ish Matsuro had fallen in love with two women: the future Mrs. Matsuro . . .
And Red.
Gunny glanced into Red’s video pickup and wondered if she could guess what he was thinking. He wondered if he could guess what she was remembering. Had it cost Red as much as it had cost Ish to file the recommendation that her commander be promoted into a slot suitable for a career officer to marry and raise a family? He would probably never know. But it was good they had Red to watch over them on the eve of their deadliest mission to date. Gunny knew that would be the deciding factor in whether or not he slept at all over the coming days.
Gunny suspected Doug Hart had no real inkling what a fine command he carried into war. If there’d been a way to tell him without betraying Ish and Red, he’d have made damned sure his commander knew it. So he cleared his throat and scuffed one boot toe on the deckplates and said, “Red’ll take care of us, anyway, Banjo. Hell, who knows? Maybe she’ll dance at your wedding.”
A sweet chuckle issued from the speakers. “A Mark XXI Special Unit can’t dance. But I could serve cake with my exterior manipulator arms. And I take a mean wedding photo.”
Banjo grinned. “Deal.”
Doug Hart smiled. “That’s a rendezvous, then. Now, about this processing plant . . .”
Gunny retreated, leaving the officers and Red to plan out the next few days of his life.
To Willum DeVries’ surprise, they stayed in the river for three days. The first day they spent checking everything and sitting in place. The officers went on thirty-three percent alert status, which meant at least one officer was awake at all times. Taking his first solo turn in Red’s Command Compartment was unnerving; but Red was so good at her job, she left him with almost nothing to do but watch the vid screens. The second two days they spent crawling upstream to locate the boat landing marked on Red’s map. During transit, they amused themselves playing cards with one another and with Red.