She watched the Marines get trained on the new M41A Mark 2 pulse rifles. Nickole herself had no interest in weaponry of any kind, but she knew that plenty of people viewing her cast would want to know all about the new toys, so she forced herself to learn all about its range, how to load it, how to field-strip it, how it differed from the Mark 1’s, and so on, which would all go in a sidebar.
She also watched the Marines perform drills that involved a lot of running over bizarre terrain, shooting things that didn’t stay still, and variable lighting.
But what was of most interest to her was the Marines’ informal training. One day, Sergeant Ayed Stepanyan gave them the afternoon off, and six of the Marines decided to play sharpshooter poker. They took four beams of wood and attached thirteen cards from a shuffled deck to each beam, then set them up on a ridge, one beam on top of the other.
The half-dozen Marines then went two thousand meters away and set up their M42A Scope Rifles. Each took a shot and had to hit a card. After they each took their turn, they shot again until they’d each shot five times. Whoever took out cards that made up the highest hand won. If you took a shot and missed, you folded.
Of course, the Marines took bets on who would win. Most of the money was on the company sharpshooter, Corporal Hakim Rashad. A few side bets also went on some of the others, not to mention betting on what the hand would be.
By the fourth shot, everyone was out except for Rashad and Private Malik Washington, the newest and quietest member of the company. In fact, he’d arrived the day Nickole did.
Corporal Li Hsu was the only one who didn’t participate—instead he used his binocs to see who shot what and kept track of the hands.
“Okay,” Hsu said, “Rashad has two pair, aces and threes. Washington’s four to a jack-high straight.”
One of the Private Dmitri Sandovals—Little D—said, “Where the fuck did you learn to shoot like that, newbie?”
Washington smiled shyly. “Carnival. Always won the teddy bear.”
Rashad took aim and fired.
Hsu looked through his binocs. “Ace of hearts! Full house for Rashad!”
Even as Washington took aim for his final shot, Rashad grinned. “Why you botherin’, meat? Ain’t no way a straight beats a boat!”
Washington, though, said nothing. Nickole just smiled. Her cam had a good zoom, and she knew exactly what cards the private had hit.
“Queen of spades,” Hsu said after Washington took the shot. “So queen-high straight. Nice, but futile. Rashad’s the winner with the full house!”
Cheers and attaboys sounded out as folks congratulated Rashad. Scrip also started exchanging hands.
“Not exactly, Corporal,” Nickole said.
Shaking his head, Washington said, “It’s okay, ma’am. The corporal said—”
But Nickole kept talking. “Look at the suits of the cards that Private Washington hit.”
Hsu put the binocs back to his eyes and then his face fell. “Sonofabitch.”
“What?” Rashad asked, cutting himself off in mid self-congratulatory cheer.
Lowering the binocs, Hsu said, “The reporter’s right. Washington didn’t get a queen-high straight. He got a queen-high straight flush.” He chuckled. “Guess you get the teddy bear again.”
Rashad’s face fell. Nickole just smiled.
Everyone else was either angry or confused.
And then Little D, who was in charge of the bet money, said, “Y’all ain’t gonna believe this.”
Rashad turned to face Little D. “What?”
Holding up both hands, Little D said, “Don’t shoot the messenger! I’m just tellin’ you what is. And what it is is the reporter’s the only one who put money down on the newbie.”
“Excellent,” Nickole said, stepping forward to claim her winnings from Little D.
Shaking his head, Rashad asked, “What the hell you bet on his sorry ass for?”
“Because I already knew about the teddy bears.” She took the scrip from Little D. “I want to thank you all for this. It’ll be a big help on my vacation to Prince Edward Island. Don’t worry, though, I’ll be back in two weeks.”
“What the fuck is in PEI that you wanna vacation there?” Rashad asked.
“Well, for starters, a refreshing lack of Marines.”
Everyone laughed at that one. Big D said, “You will be missed, Ms. Kejela.” He was the only one who called her that. The others either used her first name or, more likely, just called her “the reporter.”
“Thank you, Dmitri,” she replied.
“Yeah, thank him,” Rashad said. “Me, I’ll be glad for the privacy.”
“You’re the one who left the bathroom door open, Rashad,” she said with a sweet smile. “I’m off.”
“No you’re not.”
Turning, Nickole saw Sergeant Stepanyan approaching.
“What do you mean I’m not?” she asked. “I planned this vacation a year ago, and my boss told me—”
“I don’t know what your boss told you, but my boss just told me that we’re gearing up and heading up to the Nellie, which is taking us to LV-418.”
Nickole blinked. An actual mission? To another planet? “Uh, okay, but I was—”
“My orders, Ms. Kejela, are for everyone to saddle up. Including you.”
* * *
SGT. STEPANYAN: Look, you can talk to me all you want, but you should focus on the others. I’m pretty much on my way to retirement. Already filled out the paperwork.
ME: Really? I wasn’t aware of that. There’s nothing in your service record about it.
SGT. STEPANYAN: Well, I haven’t actually sent the paperwork yet. But I will. Probably tomorrow.
CPL. HSU: Don’t pay him any attention, ma’am, he’s been sayin’ that for years, and we’re still stuck with him!
—transcript of raw footage of interview of Sergeant Ayed Stepanyan, Colonial Marines, J Company, conducted by Nickole Kejela
* * *
Nickole spent the next twenty-four hours packing and leaving repeated messages of both voice and text with Hasegawa. Those messages garnered one response, five minutes before she was to report to the shuttle that would take them to the Nellie in orbit:
“This is why you are there. Take the sideways road.”
With a sigh, Nickole reported to the shuttle, after putting in a request for everything that HNS had on LV-418. In particular, she recalled that one of her first assignments at HNS fifteen years ago was as a researcher on a piece about the procedure for setting up a colony, and she’d dug up a ton of stuff on that subject. The research would still be in the archives, and she nabbed all of it.
She spent the next six hours cancelling her vacation and failing to get refunds on anything, thanks to the short notice.
Still allowed to take my vacation. Eighty-five percent sitting around. Can’t believe I fell for Hasegawa’s bullshit.
After ten hours on the Nellie, they were clear of both Earth and the moon’s gravity wells and the ship was basically a ballistic missile aimed at LV-418. She and J Company and the crew of the Nellie all went into cryosleep.
The lid on her chamber seemed to rise only a second after it had closed over her, but of course, the entire lengthy interplanetary journey had taken place without the need for the ship to feed or provide atmosphere for her or anyone else. Not to mention the limited entertainment options in interstellar space.
Her head swam as she sat up in the cryobed, trying to orient herself and keep the ship from dancing around in several directions at once.
“You okay?”
Nickole looked up to see a very blurry version of Private Washington looking down on her.
“I’m fine, Malik.”
“You don’t look fine. Never done cryosleep before?”
She shook her head, an action she regretted, as it made her head spin more. “Farthest out I ever went were the asteroid mines.”
“Yeah,” Washington said, “it’s kinda like a hangover, the first time.
”
“Oh, it’s exactly like a hangover,” Nickole said emphatically, “but without the happy memories of being drunk.”
Washington guided her to her feet and led her toward the mess area. “C’mon,” he said, “best thing for a cryohangover is lots of really terrible food.”
Nickole chuckled. “Sounds yummy.”
“And hey, thanks for sticking up for me at the poker shoot. I didn’t want to contradict the corporal…”
“Hey, I was motivated. That was a lot of cash I won.” Nickole managed a ragged grin.
“Listen, there’s something I didn’t mention to you during the interview that I wanted to talk to you about.”
Nickole frowned. “What’s that?”
“You probably get this a lot, but—Well, I’ve been working on a novel. I was wondering if I could talk to you about writing some time?”
At that, Nickole laughed. “As long as you don’t want me to write a book off your idea and split the profits.”
Washington looked at her askance. “Why would I do that?”
They joined the others for their post-cryo breakfast.
Lieutenant Berenato joined them partway through. “Just talked to the Nellie crew. Situation’s worse’n we thought.”
“What is the situation?” Nickole asked.
Everyone stared at her.
“Sorry, I spent the flight out trying to cancel the vacation I was forbidden from taking,” she said bitterly.
Rashad laughed. “Why you wanna go to PEI for, when you get to watch Marines in action, Poker Face?”
Nickole frowned at her new nickname, but decided she liked it better than “the reporter.” At least this one had a story behind it.
Rashad kept laughing until he noticed Berenato staring at him. Then he shut up.
“You gotta teach me that stare,” Nickole said to the lieutenant with a smile.
Berenato did not smile back. “And you need to read the briefing materials. Short version: the planet only has one continent. There’s a research outpost there. The island has sinkholes. Stuff’s falling down into them. The research outpost is bugging out, and they need our help.”
Relief spread through Nickole. “Just a rescue operation? That’s great.”
Stepanyan chuckled. “Yeah, probably won’t even break your fingernails. Or mine. Which is good, since I’m retiring after this.”
Nickole rolled her eyes and continued to eat her tasteless steak and eggs.
“You ain’t never gonna retire, Step,” Little D said.
“I’m pretty sure he hasn’t even really filled out the paperwork yet,” Hsu added.
“You’ll see,” Stepanyan said enigmatically. “This will be my last mission, you watch.”
* * *
ME: What’s your proudest moment as a Marine?
CPL. RASHAD: That shit’s easy. Lunar riots. This one motherfucker was beating on a woman. I put a shot in his head. Motherfucker went down.
ME: That’s your proudest moment?
CPL. RASHAD: Damn right. We servin’ and protectin’ and shit, and that woman got protected by my ass. S’what it’s all about.
—transcript of raw footage of interview of Corporal Hakim Rashad, Colonial Marines, J Company, conducted by Nickole Kejela
* * *
The research outpost on LV-418 had a room they called the Patio, which was fully enclosed—the planet didn’t have a breathable atmosphere—and had a huge picture window that looked out over the island. It was filled with weird plants in a variety of colors like orange and yellow, and a lot of purple and black dirt.
Much of that dirt kept collapsing into big holes, including one right under where six of the scientists were getting samples. J Company was out there in EVA suits rescuing the half-dozen scientists from the hole. Rashad, Hsu, Washington, Big D, and Little D were all out rigging up ziplines and pulling the scientists out and over to the ATV, which was the only ground vehicle that was safe to move on the unstable ground.
Next to her was the head of the outpost, a short woman named Aparna Pradhuman. Nickole asked her, “I have to ask, Dr. Pradhuman, why would you send them out there when there are sinkholes?”
“Simple—I didn’t send them. They went on their own.” She shook her head. “Morons.”
The Marines all had their own helmet cams, and Berenato had let Nickole watch the feed from them on her NohtPad, with their audio in an earbud. She wasn’t really paying close attention to them—it was all being recorded, and she could go over it later—and she had the earbud turned down to almost nothing.
But Rashad yelling, “Holy motherfucking shit, what the fuck is that?” at the top of his lungs got her attention.
Looking at her NohtPad, she saw that Rashad was down in the deepest part of the sinkhole, handing off people to Big D, who was halfway up, who then got them to Little D on the surface, and then Washington brought them to the ATV and back to the base. Hsu kept an eye on the equipment, made sure that everything would hold together.
She zoomed Rashad’s cam feed, and was stunned to see something else in the sinkhole besides, well, a hole.
At first, the sinkhole just looked like a massive divot in the ground, but some of the dirt had fallen away near Rashad, and it exposed a massive chamber that was filled to the brim with large ovals.
Rashad was asking, “What the fuck is all that?”
“Is it me,” Nickole asked, “or do those look like eggs?”
Over the earbud, Nickole heard Berenato ask, “Can we bring a sample back?”
Hsu replied, “I wouldn’t recommend it. If Rashad—or anyone else—starts barging around down there, the hole will probably just get bigger and we’ll start losing people.”
“All right,” Berenato said. “Corporal Rashad, keep taking pictures so we’ve got something at least.”
Pradhuman was staring over Nickole’s shoulder at the NohtPad display of Rashad’s cam. “What the hell is all that?”
“No idea.” Nickole stared at her. “I take it you haven’t seen anything like that before?”
Shaking her head, Pradhuman said, “I haven’t, no. And I should have.”
“What do you mean?”
The chief scientist started to talk and then stopped. “Never mind.”
She walked away, but Nickole wasn’t giving up that easily.
Yet.
* * *
CPL. HSU: Honestly, I hate violence. Hate guns, hate killing, hate exercise.
ME: So naturally, you joined the Marines.
CPL. HSU: You laugh, but it was natural. I mean, we’re at peace right now, so there’s not much combat—and, honestly, I’m in it for the gadgets. Seriously, the toys I get to play with here are way better than anything I’d find in the private sector.
—transcript of raw footage of interview of Corporal Li Hsu, Colonial Marines, J Company, conducted by Nickole Kejela
* * *
Night was a relative term on LV-418, as it was pretty much dark all the time, but they kept a 24-hour schedule anyhow, to make things easier on the staff. The Nellie’s window to head back to Earth wouldn’t open for another fifteen hours, so Berenato agreed to let Pradhuman’s people gather up everything they could and run whatever final tests were possible. They’d take the dropship back up to Nellie first thing in what passed for morning.
Nickole finished up her notes on today’s footage. It was the type of thing that most reporters loved, but which didn’t interest her in the least: the team being competent. You could find footage of Marines doing their jobs right anywhere. Still, that would make a decent sidebar. She wanted to know more about the people.
Her plan was to take another go at Stepanyan. The sergeant had deflected her interviews with claims of impending retirement, but it was obvious he’d been saying that for a while.
She was startled by the chime ringing on her barracks door. The place was tiny, but serviceable. Everyone got their own bunk—which was luxury for the Marines—since the base was built for fif
ty, but only two dozen were assigned.
“Come in,” she said, and the door opened to reveal Pradhuman walking unsteadily in.
“Ms. Kejela, y’need t’see this.” She held out a data disc.
“Dr. Pradhuman, are you drunk?”
“Certainly hope so. I drank enough t’get this way.”
Nickole reached out and took the disc. “Doc—”
“Jus’ read that, ’kay? Planetary survey. Ain’t no way they’re this inc—” She swallowed. “Incompetent.” Then her face went blank for a second and then her brown skin started to go green. “’Scuse me.”
Pradhuman ran out the door, and Nickole prayed that she reached the bathroom in time.
Curious, she plugged the disc into the adapter in her NohtPad.
It only had one file on it, which contained the planetary survey made by the Weyland Corp on LV-418 about a hundred years back, done a good twenty years before they took over the Yutani Corporation.
Nickole read it over, and didn’t find anything odd, except insofar as the sinkholes weren’t mentioned.
So why show it to me?
And then she recalled that she probably had a copy of this already. The survey would have been part of the massive download she did from HNS.
So she called it up and started to read it.
“Oh, fuck.”
She read it all over, and then read it a second time.
This survey report in the HNS archives was completely different from the one Pradhuman had just given her. Among other things, it actually mentioned the possibility of geologic instability, as well as readings indicating underground caverns that had biological readings.
None of these items were in the survey that W-Y had given to Pradhuman in preparation for her expedition.
They knew about the sinkholes and the possibility of some kind of alien life form, and didn’t tell the people they sent.
Before Nickole could even begin to figure out what this really meant for her story—what Hasegawa had really sent her on, not bunking with J Company for a year—the lights went out, replaced by red lights, a buzzer sounded, and a pleasant female electronic voice said, “Warning: biological contaminant detected. Quarantine procedures implemented. All personnel must remain inside base until further notice.”